Destiny, Heart and Soul
by lillithtitania
Summary: Modern AU Swan Queen. Emma works with her best friend, Ruby, in a Record store run by Belle and her Artificial Intelligence program, Beast. Regina is a lonely neuroscientist is search of Beethoven. Sparks fly between the two. True Love ending.
1. Beginning

I BEGINNING

Emma arrived at work in the naked light, alone with the rising sun as it struggled against fog heavy settled over the city. This transitioned from night clung as if hangover, holding the daylight fuzzy and unfocused.

Emma embraced this dynamic space and after stubbing out her cigarette, entered her four digit pin and pushed the door open as the light buzzed green from red. She walked through blindingly white hallways to create a lonely echo to reach the staff lounge, where she dumped her bag and heavy coat into her locker.

She took her lighter jacket as she walked back outside, slipping through several service alley's to reach a hidden lane way café.

* * *

Ruby hated early morning, the sliver of sky from her window stippled sand paper orange, a delirium after effect from the darkness. She lived in a loft, the only delineation from the single room the bathroom she stumbled into. She owned this little place in a 30 story complex, where the elevators often more broken than not, and the stairs smelt of sweat, urine, mould and fungi.

The mess of streets making her suburb, Zyvah District, are old, dark and broke. The people and buildings refracted pieces of each other, much like everything else. Yet this place is her own and she coveted it. Ruby showered and dressed, stomped the three levels to ground and out to the filtered daylight. It is winter and the fresh overnight snow already grey and slushy.

The monorail station was three blocks over and three blocks beyond that Emma and Killian's place. The station is cramped, full of dead eyes and monotone faces looking at pulsing screens, manicured hands caressing bleak information. Ruby fumbled for her phone and texted Emma, misremembering where they are meeting as more often they were together than not. The monorail carriage squealed to a stop against cold, abrasive metal. Emma texted she would bring breakfast and Ash's sludge thick coffee in to work.

* * *

"How are you baby girl?" a voice called as Emma walked through the open space left by the raised roller doors rusted into blood flecked immobility, from the counter stretched wide across the back wall.

Snow, knowing Emma's order, passed it to the kitchen before bringing pot brewed herb coffee and a glass of ice over to the long mahogany counter bar throwing warmth across the back length of the garage. Emma threw her jacket behind the end chair she climbed into and leaned back into the chilled brick wall.

"Tired," smiling weakly before sipping a mouthful of thick hot coffee poured over ice and as steam spiralled out into her eyes, she scanned the few bereft customers.

The old building containing Ash's once had been on a main street and hosted many diverse businesses before it became mazed within back city alleyways, to evolved into an insiders secret. The early morning atmosphere is placid; after the night drunks, yet before the rushed business people lacking the skills to manage life or its time.

This is Emma's favourite time, referred her solitude before the chaos of the day. She turned to Snow and commented, "unusually quiet."

"Yes, you've always had great timing," Snow smiled and shrugged, understanding Emma as she had been a regular for most of the five years she had spent in this city. They both relished the red brick, dirtied by its own history and the ebb and flow suited them both, where the monsters of the darkness played against the raptured sins of a coffee soaked daylight.

"I guess," Emma said, mimicking Snow's action, aching for a life she could not describe. She felt lost, the fractured seat of her soul missing as long as she could remember. This sense of longing for an unknown missing element corrupted everything from her childhood to now, fault lines scorching her body.

"Emma," Snow's concern filtered through her intonation, floating across the bar to enclosing around Emma's isolation, a hug wrapped within her voice.

"Really, Snow," Emma raises her eyes to meet Snow's, "I'm good."

"Okay," Snow, knowing not too push to hard. She observed a lot of human behaviour since inheriting the building from her mother, Ash, a cantankerous old mechanic who inherited it from her own father, "How's Killian?"

"The usual. Nights at Marlaree's, as always. He'll probably be in after his shift," Emma shrugged.

"Most likely," Snow smiled, masking the concern at Emma's seeming indifference to her twin. Snow knew them as young teenagers, two halves of the same old soul, each mirroring the movements of the other, perfect mimics in intense and uncanny ways, only ever together in those early years. In spite of the odd location Ash's attracted a grifter element with customers and the 24 hour operations catered to cross-cultural elements rarely seen in many other places.

The kitchen bell rang out and Snow pulled away to retrieve a plate laden with Emma's breakfast and laid it in front of her, "You've been at Bravo house this week?"

"Thanks," Emma pulled herself off of the wall to shift closer to the plate, "Yes, doing some of the supply runs, book transfer's and stuff. I think Beast has me at the apartments this week. When are the plans for Smash?"

"Four weeks from this Saturday is the meet and greet for new volunteers, at about 9:30," Snow said, "This year you'll be assisting in planning the charity gala, part of our executive committee and unfortunately this may cut into your hours at emergency shelters."

"Okay. What am I to be doing?" a small smile crept onto Emma's face, "Its on Beast's calendar?"

"Of course it is," Snow smiled as she turned towards the slow trickle of customers sleepily stumbling up to the counter for orders strong enough to help them assimilate into the day, relieved Emma had questioned what she would be doing rather than the significant change of volunteer status. She had been doing it for so long, her experience is invaluable to SPW, "and I'll tell you in four weeks."

Emma began her breakfast, methodically working her way anti-clockwise on a square plate. As a take-away breakfast slid next to Emma, she nodded her thanks. When finished, Emma pulled her jacket back on her small frame, waved at Snow and escaped back to the alleyways, the coded door and echoing hallways.

* * *

Ruby walked into the basement meeting room in the Pacer Complex, the seven story, 24 hour entertainment megastore stretching above her, where the other forty-three people commencing their shift gathered. She reached over as Emma walked into the staff room, grasping at the takeaway bag, mumbling thanks as she inhaled the coffee.

"You could at least meet me one morning," Emma smiled, sitting next to Ruby.

"You know the rules. Not unless we've left from night shift. You may not sleep, but I love mine."

"Slacker," snorted Emma, "and I love sleep. We just don't get along especially well."

"Shut up," got lost as Ruby started eating.

The rest of the assembled staff were busy adjusting the base feedback on their headsets, which allowed all of them to maintain permanent contact with Beast, as the manager strolled in, adjusting the earpiece of her headset while reading the live digital array fed directly from Beast to her tablet.

"Morning Team. Emma and Ruby, I need you both in Classical. Claudia and Xaiden are unable to attend until the midday shift. Tanikaa, our guest band for the second floor have cancelled, and the house band is currently on tour and yet to be permanently replaced. Any volunteers?"

Staff usually worked on a specific level, knowledge and passion a major selling point of Pacer. Emma and Ruby preferred to work on the second level, alternative music, as opposed to popular music on the ground floor. They are often stranded on three as both trained in classical music. On exceptionally rare occasions, they were on level four, but country and international music not of particular interest to them. Both refused to work in children's entertainment on five or with DVDs on six, neither catering for their musical talents.

"We will," Calais and Fletcher spoke, both instantly attentive. Staff are performers, musicians, dancers and are required to perform independently in any of these capacities or to support guest performers.

"Band name?"

Calais and Fletcher are like most of the staff, taking this job to meet other musicians and fill missing band positions. Many bands formed and dissolved within the walls of Pacer, which had a history of creating successful bands, coveting that Pacer has the resources to create their careers.

Even if they failed, missed the success juggernaut, Pacer would keep them for itself, the convenience of an endless talent pool and would use their talent to mentor younger, developing musicians. Those who are good, or around long enough, to become house bands get automatic access to the recording opportunities Pacer provides. The complex evolved into this collective of artists and bands, producing and stocking all staff member albums.

Calais responded, "Spenal."

"Okay. Can anyone help with drums?" moments pass before Beast breaks over the speakers. Pacer is technologically advanced and all operational systems are controlled via Beast, a fully integrated artificial intelligent program, "Henrietta."

Henry, on her first shift and a recent percussionist graduate from the county's elite music program at The Raptor City Academy of Performance Arts (RCAPA), looked up from her black and red fingernails at the disembodied voices announcement and said, "Its Henry, and okay?"

Beast's voice broke the silence in the rooms speakers with her calculated, balanced voice, "The classical act for the hummingbird just cancelled."

The Manager looked over to Ruby and Emma, "Can you two play the Hummingbird. Sanihda and Eviva can you do the dance set at nine on one?"

"Claudia and Xaiden are on at midday," Ruby asked, "Why don't Xaidia play?"

"Claudia has tendinitis. Xaiden will wait until it's healed. They've asked for a performance break so Claudia can seek treatment. Lane, are you sorted for seven?"

Level seven is the complexes most controversial. The age restricted adult entertainment have an exclusive team and specialised security measures because of the live performances. Pacer frequently is criticised for this level, however money is power and they effectively were able to deflect any negative press aimed at them. Lane, specialist manager for seven nodded, "All organised."

All four nod their acknowledgement. After a few more negligible announcements, the team dispersed, Emma leaving with Ruby for the third floor, "I don't want to play today," sticking out her tongue in mock petulance.

"Emma?" Henry called, as she exited the staff room behind them. Emma stopped, turned and waited for Henry to catch up, "Sorry, What's the Hummingbird?"

"The hummingbird hour is the time between twelve and three."

"Why is it called that?"

"Mythology surrounding the name refers to two types of socialite women who spend the afternoon lunching and shopping. There's the society kind, lives via inherited or married wealth, and the corporate kind, whose fought for their own independence their status is paramount to their own power. They both shop at lunch to appear important and time poor in a twenty four hour society. Its important to know the difference when you are dealing with them."

"Um. Okay," mumbled Henry, "and I heard you volunteer for Smash Punch?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I was thinking of helping," Henry looked at Emma, moving from foot to foot in her nervousness.

"There's a meet and greet in four weeks from Saturday, at nine thirty. I'll introduce you to Snow, if you would like to come. If you do volunteer remember to tell Beast, she can assist with your shift and volunteering schedule."

"Okay. Thanks." Henry smiled, shuffled her feet before shrugging and continued up to the floors above as Emma turned back to Ruby.

"Do we know her?" Ruby looked after Henry as she walked off.

"I don't think so," Emma frowned, remembered themselves when they first started at Pacer, the two of them together and requested the same shifts, "It's her first day."

"She seems to know you..."

Beast spoke over their headsets, "Upon graduation she recorded her original composition with Pacer Music Studios and attended an audition with Raptor City Philharmonic Orchestra her parents organised."

"Eh," Emma shrugged, not really caring that Pacer stocked and published all RCAPA music student's graduation compositions, but remembering that only the top three percent of RCAPA undergraduate music students were automatically offered an opportunity to record their compositions on the Pacer label, in addition too all Honours and Masters students, "how did she fail, Beast? She would have been top three..."

"Nerves?" Beast offered, "but she uniquely filled the only requirement of all musicians and producers utilised in the recording are themselves students by being the only player, even though she could have used the RCAPA student philharmonic."

"Okay Beast," Emma shrugged, loosing interest as they began their ascent, "What if we play living composers?"

Ruby pulled a face, pleased that while on the third flood shifts together, they could experiment against each other with defiant disregard for the hummingbird fanatics, and said, "What if we played Gothic chamber music?"

Emma laughed, comforted by her years old friend, whose violin and fondness for dead composers a connection before anything else, bonding deeply forged scars twisted in iron onto their flesh. The classical floor is the hardest to play, as the mornings are quiet and often sets were often ignored, while the afternoon sets attracted fanatics critical of any interpretation beyond their own favourites.

Emma, classically trained in piano, flute, violin and cello and Ruby in piano, violin and sitar, both knew that in spite of their preference for working in alternative, their talent left both of them the most obvious replacements on classical.

"We could ask for permanent night shift?" Ruby suggested, begrudging that staff shifts spanned across six rotating times. Both preferred either of the two night shifts, or the late afternoon shift extending into night as it gave them more creative flexibility, interesting customers and, rarely, the classical floor.

"We could both play an Owling for once," Emma said, referring to the infamous early morning sessions that happened anywhere between midnight and four whenever the will took the people present, where staff and customers could play without restriction or restraint. Owling Sessions created a dedicated, cultish following and members of this group tattooed a local masked owl upon the base of their skulls.

Both Emma and Ruby had this tattoo inked upon themselves and in many ways founded this symbol of the group. Emma revealed in the freedom of this melding of talents, experimental delineation lost within the gaps of time, allowing both of them to fold the gnarled spaces within their soul, fading away the hollows and cracks.

For Emma, the leaderless melting of music energised by the bodies of unhampered participants, flowed her away from the trauma of their past and allowed them, even if momentarily, to forget the sharp edges of their present.

This shift, this day, these friends would be on until three, and they were already exhausted at the unexpected and additional performances over the last two hours of their shift. Walking onto the floor, waving at Kali and Lethe restocking shelves, Emma smiled at Ruby, adding, "Okay. But the least we could do is mix fusion Jazz with Gothic Chamber."

"Absolutely," Ruby snickered, walking up to the café, empty of customers, over to Estella and Walter, "slacking off were we?"

"Its too stressful to work when its this busy," Estella said, indicating the lack of customers with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"I guess," Ruby said before ordering coffee and sitting down.

"Why are you two here?"

"Claudia and Xaiden changed to the midday shift," Ruby said.

"Whose playing?"

"No idea this morning. We've thirteen and fourteen."

* * *

Regina stood in her ninth floor office suite in the neurological unit of Mathilde Avenue Research Hospital (MARH), looking over Violet River. The outer office contained her secretary, an efficient woman permanently running interference, as her hours were wayward and non-standard.

She had her office at home, preferred it, but presence at the hospital usually mandatory in her position. Still, she demanded her appointments be clustered in the morning so that her afternoons were ripe for escape. Today she could find the elusive Beethoven she is seeking.

* * *

The shift warped around them, the climate controlled environment encapsulating time so effectively they barely noticed it was midday until Claudia and Xaiden walked onto the floor.

"Hi. Glad you're finally here," Ruby said, noticing Claudia's strapped hand, "So Xaidia will be playing?"

"Thanks Ruby," Xaiden laughed, "Compassionate to the end."

Emma feigned innocence, "But Claudia, whatever is that bandage!"

"Its seriously so annoying. We had to cancel Eloise."

"You usually play there?"

Claudia see-sawed her non bandaged hand, "Kind of. We've played private events there, and they've very slowly started giving us gigs," she raised her bandaged wrist, "this may lose it."

"We've other things going on" Xaiden shrugged "the Eloise is a nice gig, though..."

"You love it more than me. All of those well dressed ladies..."

All laughing, Emma picked up her coffee from behind the counter, "We're going for lunch."

* * *

Regina walked onto cavernous classical floor, assaulted by colour the walls covered in band and music paraphernalia. A pianist played as she scanned the floor, over the thirtyish people wondering and a few scattered throughout the chairs in the café.

Regina saw a slight girl with spiky hair fiddling with the headset attached to her ear. From her crown, spirals of deep royal purple and glowing pink circled her head, creating a halo of colour under the fluorescents. Regina walked over, desiring to quickly leave this bastion of overwhelming consumerism.

Emma was pressing buttons on her apparently malfunctioning headset, repeating, "Beast," into the slimline mike jutting along her jaw, as Regina walked up and she turned at the gentle tap on her shoulder, meeting a set of startling brown eyes, liquid chocolate over ice that she stumbled across and slid into oblivion.

"I'm sorry to startle you," the customers voice, throaty and deep, seared across Emma.

Emma recovered enough to smile subtly as she attempted to pitch her voice as evenly as she was not, "How can I assist you?"

"I'm looking for a March 1923 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra recording of Beethoven's Symphony #5, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwangler on vinyl," a gentle pause as she swallowed, her face on fire, then as if an explanation, "I heard it at a party."

"Sure," Emma said, thankful for the distraction. The customer is beautiful, standing powerfully before her. She holds herself perfectly, charmingly, beautifully, brilliantly and all of this is focused directly on her. Every single other sensation other than the one she is presented with overwhelm her, as of she belonged in the vacuum.

"Beast," into her crackling and distorted headset. Beast, a vast digital management system, controlled life inside the Pacer bubble.

"Emma," Beast's voice finally distorted back.

"1923 BPO Beethoven 5," Emma asked, concisely pitching her voice over her rapid fire heartbeat.

"Proceed…." kicked over her headset before it acquiesced to crackled distortion.

Emma looked apologetically at her customer, said, "I'm sorry. Let me take you to the Beethoven section."

The classic corporate hummingbird, with her tailored suit, manicured nails and echoed, clipped footfalls, followed Emma's lead. The crackling dulled enough for Beast's hard edged voice to break through, "I13, R3, T2, V4"

"Thanks," Emma responded, grateful for Beast delivering immediate customer service queries, even with her dodgy headset. Emma pulled out the fourth Vinyl in the second tier of the third row, aisle thirteen and handed it to the hummingbird and pitched her voice low, "Is this what you are looking for?"

She perused it with quick efficiently, "Yes," as she looked up to Emma, "You do not look like the others on this level."

A statement, definitive, not a question. Emma shrugged, edgy at the way she was reacting to the customer in front of her, pushing some rogue pink hair out of her eye, "I'm not always on this level. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"How does it not bleed?" She indicated Emma's hair, "and you've specific knowledge for multiple floors?"

"The experience of my hairdresser," as she smiled for the first time that day, repeating, "and yes, this floor, pop and alternative. Is that all you need today?"

"That's quite an eclectic mix. Yes, thank you, this is what I wanted," she extended her hand, fine fingers resting together, "Regina."

"Emma," smiled again as she shook the dry, manicured hands, feeling a subtle jolt transmitted through their hands as their eyes connected. Emma's headset crackled, creating a piercing whine in Emma's ear. She winced, breaking eye contact, pulling the ear piece out and said, "I can walk you to the teller."

"No need. Is something wrong?" Regina noticed details, weighing the odds of any situation with precision yet felt unsettled by Emma's deep dragon green eye's, blazing fire at the edges. She felt the loss of those eyes whilst observing both the wince and extradition of earpiece.

"No," Emma smiled, an unusual habit but one she is unable to resist and starting towards the service counter, she shrugged and admitted, "my headset is playing up."

"Your headset?" Regina asked, following the fascinating girl again.

"The headset...is feeding back is all. I'll need to change it."

"Thank you for your help," Regina's voice deep and smoky, drifting down Emma's spine.

"You're welcome," Emma replied, approaching the service counter, "This is Ruby."

"Thank You," Regina turned towards Ruby.

Emma mouthed "Hive" at Ruby pointing between lifts and her dangling earpiece. Ruby nodded in return as she turned to smile at Regina, extending her hand towards the record. Emma backed away and returned to the administration basement to visit Belle. She thought about Regina on the way down, the caress of her smile, the way the suit shifted with her, the sway of her hips within her stride. Warmth spread through Emma as she walked into the Hive.

"My Headsets not working."

"I know. Here's the replacement. I also need you on level one, dancing to Milhra," Belle looking up from the codes scrolling over her monitor at Emma.

"With who?" Emma unstrung the earpiece through her shirt as she unclipped the power pack attached to her belt, "and I'm meant to be playing on three."

"Ruby can handle three, and Decter Mesa, and can you two stay late?" Belle asked, "we haven't found replacements for the four who called in sick yet."

"Belle, he can't dance," Emma replied as all of the sweetness flowing through her body twisted cold. She pushed the new earpiece into the power pack.

"He's all we can spare. Kali is needed on four," Belle looked apologetic.

"When..." Emma asked, defeated, beginning to string the cord through under her shirt and replaced the earpiece where it belonged, "and yeah, we can stay."

"15 minutes, and thanks."

"Lucky you're awesome," Emma sighed, walking back out to the lifts and returning to classical to tell Ruby of their extended hours.

Exiting the lifts to walk out on to the floor, she is startled by a tranquil voice, "Hello."

Emma turned towards the voice, hope sparking at the rusty intonation, "Regina?"

"Ruby said you were dancing shortly."

Emma smiled at the unequivocal statement. Her jazz timbered voice left no other interpretation as a glow flushed over Emma's face. Regina's voice is ferocious, sanguine, intelligent, sounding of hard edged black coffee and measured, calculated, barbed wire dipped in chocolate as she spoke again, "I decided to stay and see you dance."

Emma nodded, curious, "On Level 1, the lowest café tier, back corner table, has the best view."

A simple nod, and Regina turned upon her knife point stiletto and walked towards the lifts. Emma walked over to the counters, where only Laeir was behind the desk, asking, "Ruby?"

He shook his head, smiling wickedly, "Break."

"Okay. I'll see you in an hour."

Emma walked back, tracing her steps to the lifts and down to level one. It didn't matter the band playing, as Emma's mind drifted back to the curve of Regina's voice. As she walked to the floor, she scanned the café and found Regina sitting where she had suggested. Emma began trembling as her mind free fell as her desire spooling, an effect no one had on her before.

Regina watched the enticement walk out onto the floor, intrigued by her delicate paleness. She felt this spark, enticed by this tendril of intuition radiating out towards this girl. She often felt this at work, during the delicate surgery she performed but never felt it directed towards an actual person. Regina's obsessive qualities focused relentlessly and served her well in her career, but she is absolutely unprepared for this incursion into her personal life.

Regina sat in the corner of the café, staying longer than necessary to watch the girl, enthralled. Regina felt this connection immediately, yet held no idea what it meant. Pacer is, as usual, busy and the performance barely noticed outside of the café. Regina could not remove her eyes from the movement, Emma preternaturally attuned to the music, her attention stealing all that Regina had. Nothing had broken through to her like this in years. Emma felt Regina before she saw her as her dance set finished and as she walked toward the break room. Regina smiled at her, buttoning her jacket, but did not say a word, stealing Emma's breath as she went.

Emma returned to level three after a 15 minute break, and wandered over to Ruby, shifting stock onto shelves from a trolley beside her.

"Miss," Emma spoke harsh and guttural.

Ruby jumped and turned before she giggled, "Emma!"

"What's with telling the hummingbird?" Emma raised her eyebrows in mock anger, her secret pleasure still tingling.

"Not really. Belle paged you, I responded your headset was down and you were on your way. She told me you'd be dancing."

"Uh, so that would still've been headset only?"

"Emma," Ruby smiled, both breaking out laughing before continuing, "I told Laeir, as it was told to me directly."

Emma smiled as she picked up a group of Chopin books before responding, "Sure, Ruby, sure..."

"You'd this look your face," Ruby continued, baiting Emma, "exactly like the one you have now..."

"Shut up Rubes. Killian and I are going to Harper's. You coming?"

"Evasive little Princess, aren't we. Just giving you a hard time," Ruby, holding up her hands in submission, "Yeah. What's playing? Who's playing?"

"Not sure. We're getting food before Killian has to work, but he's shifted to the late start, so Harper's came up. And we're now working late."

"He won't care I'm coming."

"I know. That's why I said," Emma laughed, comfortable with the lightness of the afternoon, and the prospect of finally being able to catch up with her twin. In spite of living together, shift work had kept them apart for over a week. For the few hours, they idly re-shelved merchandise, joking about the dodgy dancing of Decter Mesa.

Emma and Ruby pulled off the last music performance and made their way to the basement staff area, Emma grabbed her bag from her locker and took out her mobile, looking at the messages from Killian, relaying it to Ruby, and from there they walked out of the staff entrance, walking further into the alleyways to avoid the main streets.

"Killian said he'll meet us there."

"Okay," Ruby pulled her backpack on over her winter coat, "At least we're out earlier than expected."

"Yes," Emma snorted, "Early for the night shift. Ready?"

"Yep," as the afternoon sun hit them, gloomy in an overcast sky, on their way to the monorail.

Emma asked "Do you...never mind..."

"What?" Ruby, whose trauma coiled around her core and mutated with her into adulthood, heard the tone splinting into Emma's voice.

"Nothing," Emma sighed, unable to articulate the vacancy settled within her, an absence, longing for what she couldn't seem to say.

"Existential crisis?" Ruby, abandoned well before she even lived, adopted yet orphaned by five, understood how ill-fated and corrupt luck is, branded by blindness in her left eye and three skull deep lacerations from forehead to chin because of it. Deeply scarred and physically able to show it, Emma was the first friend she connected with at all, an ethereal wisp with an accent and an indifference to other people.

"Ruby..." Emma groaned.

Emma knew she was gifted with an openness to humanity and to nature and it is painful, an open wound refusing to scab over to give the peace she desired. She needed to save herself from the constant influx of people static while also being open enough to share her life with Ruby, Belle and Killian, their insular relationships indifferent to the world outside. She filled her disconnected world with distractions efficiently along with the anonymity cities always grant. Emma knew she has pulled Ruby in so close that they isolated their damage in the barren wasteland outside of themselves.

"I know something is wrong. Is it Killian, again?" Killian, Ruby knew, flung himself out into the world, connecting with everyone and anyone physically to disconnect emotionally. All he managed to achieve is to filter his stray world behind Emma's protection, shelter his broken self. Killian Emma's shadow, borrowing her strength, a sycophant, one alien soul in two bodies.

"No. Not Killian. It's me. Its just...I don't know how to say," Emma shrugged, unable to describe her acute desolation, this undeniable sense of longing, protecting a void breaking open at the centre of her soul, the shifting illusion she presented to the world fractured, loosing the core of herself to hide. She feels adrift and unsure of where the stable earth is, only certain of the scars crackling between them, maintaining their bonds of trauma and flesh, "I don't know."

"We're..." Ruby spoke soft, "...as always us."

"I feel...I'm expecting something," Emma shook her head, "no, more like this intense sense of anticipation, but I don't know what it is I'm waiting for."

"Okay. We've to find what your missing?" Ruby said before adding, "are you sure it isn't that Killian may try to have us poisoned with his clothing choices?"

Emma giggled, shouldering Ruby, the mood between them lifting, "I think we can safety assume he'll be dressed appallingly."

The city is old, built and rebuilt over centuries and particularly the inner city was full of back alleys, dark and useful places that can be delightful shortcuts when you know the paved secrets. Emma and Ruby rustled out into the Ianthe laughing.

Harper's is an ancient place that at one point been a laundry, a coffee house, an art gallery and It evolved into a meeting place of revolutionaries, poets, artisans and painters, writers of glory and dissent and from this became a performance place with the dark corners creating life to songs of swords and heroes.

It is a small egress the width of a Volkswagen Beetle, barely lit and sunk most of the way through to the other side of the block. Where the back of darkness stopped, a minuscule kitchen slid, cooking some of the best foods and delectable treats. There are no menus, no list of micro-brewed beers, or ordering system. Harper's only opened at nightfall, closed as daylight hit and was always full between those times, a cloud of people incessantly outside the doors. The battle to find a table matched only by the fight to keep it. Once gained, food and drink would appear on shoddy, graffitied tables.

Emma and Ruby turned the last corner, the cloud of drifters and itinerants gradually using the last of the afternoon sun to gather and wait for it to fade. Ruby and Emma crowded through the intimate space until they found Killian, defending a table.

"Took your time."

"How'd you care?" Emma snickered at Ruby answered.

"Double teaming tonight?"

"Always tri-teaming," Emma replied, kicking him in the leg. They sat, the noise of Harper's flexing, while the winter sun drifted to its inevitable solution.

"So do we get food here?" Ruby asked.

"I already ate. You two are late."

"Ohhh, Killian," Ruby brightened, "Guess..."

"Ruby, no," Emma pushed Ruby mockingly, her face pulsating red in an instant as her thoughts turned to Regina. Even her own mind betraying her, already flipping a hummingbird customer to thinking of her by name.

"What?" Killian's interest peaked from Emma's obvious flush, "Tell."

"Don't Ruby," warned Emma.

"Well, Killian," began Ruby, "Emma met someone..."

"That's it!" Emma intercepted dramatically, "Killian, so no. Ruby is simply being…"

Killian laughed, purring, "Owww, Emma..."

"She's a corporate hummingbird, Killian, seriously," Emma rolled her eyes.

"Ewwww. Social death."

Laughing, more Harper's specials appeared on the table. The three friends relaxed and chatted and with the inevitable influx of people, rose to the inspired pleasure of Harper's entertainment. Even when Killian left for work, Ruby and Emma stayed, mixing their bodies to the sounds, flowing and twisting until the last of the night relinquished to the dawn and Harper's closed itself from it, a precipice retreating from dawn as it bleed life to the side walk.

The ladies, exhausted, drifted to their homes and yielded to the slumber awaiting them. There was a face in her dreams, a memory from the future, a longing for this figure remained when she woke, desperately longing for intimate connection with another. This intensity within the drift, the space between sleep and awake, and her desire burnt her soul into flames.

* * *

It took Regina three days after the weekend away to walk back to Pacer and up to level two. It was late night, after finishing work, and she could not see the girl who captivated her interest so severely.

Regina wanted her, had dreamt about those dragon fire green eyes, the lilt of her her voice. She woke determined to talk to her, as she was unsure if she was simply focusing on someone, anyone, or if it was something about her specifically that had caught her attention. She had, instead of the spiral headed wonder, found the cashier with the unique facial scars walking across the floor. Regina shut the distance between them, "Excuse me."

"How may I help you?" Ruby smiled as she turned, recognising the customer to continue, "Beethoven."

"Yes. Regina, actually. I'm looking for Emma."

"Really?" Ruby's smile deepened, "for?"

Regina lowered her eyes as she flicked her wrist to see the time before replying, "That I'll not say."

"Then I'll not help. She's special."

"Intriguing," Regina held Ruby's gaze, unspeakable micro-battles transmitting between them, "Its for a personal reason."

"Then I can help," Ruby's eyes glazed momentarily as she said, "Beast...thirty minutes" before her focus returned to Regina as she adjusted her headset, indicating the café in the corner. They sat in a quiet corner, coffee aroma drifting out of their cups before Ruby asked, "What is it you want?"

"Emma," Regina's voice with an unexpected tremor of truth, naked and scared of this exposure.

Ruby's smirked, "Really?"

"Yes."

"Lucky for you, I think she wants you, too."

A smile broke across Regina's face, "Excellent."

"Not so much. We're not in high school. I'm not going to pass notes."

"Fair enough. So I should just...ask, then?"

"You need to make sure she will not say no."

"How?"

"By being spectacular and unique, unexpected. All I'll do is confirm our shift times. The details are up to you."

Regina wrote her number down, and shifted it across to Ruby, "Thank you."

"That's okay. But I'll be watching," Ruby laughed, "Sorry. That sounded bad...clichéd, I mean..."

"I understand," Regina replied as she joined in the laughter.

* * *

Emma sat with Ruby at the edge of the dark edge of a dirty bar, watching the desperation shift by, "Why did we come here?"

"Because," Ruby shrugged.

"How's that an answer?"

"If we're going to hate the world together, can we at least observe the disgust with a little ingenuity."

"We can do this at Harper's. Or Arantxa if you want somewhere new."

"We always go to Harper's. It's too easy. And we promised Killian we wouldn't go to Arantxa without him."

"Too easy? To do what?" Emma said.

"Judge."

"I don't hate the world, Rube, and neither do you."

"How do you not hate the world?" Ruby pushed.

"R," Emma finished her drink, disliking the challenge,"I'm leaving."

"Emma..."

"No. This place is skanky."

"Fine. Violet Pier?"

"Fine," Emma pushed her way out of the dark bar and onto the darker street, "Ruby, why are we here?"

"Because I'm tired of pretending. You say no to everything."

"What do you mean."

"You saw the people back there? The aged despair, the lonely hopelessness. That is us. You. Me. Killian." Ruby knew Emma and Killian's history, felt their pain and the constant presence of federal agents.

"How'll we end up like that when there are three of us?"

"Killian is a stripper, worshipped for his slight frame and youth, will abandon himself to become the leader of a group as lost as he is. I hide..." Ruby didn't remember being loved, really, just a vague sense of comfort and warmth lingering that left her longing. She unconsciously caressed her face, along the puckered skin sewn into three scars running from her hairline to just under her chin.

These should have faded, but as her face grew, the scars stretched with it. Her eye had sustained far too much damage and was removed, completing the wreckage of her face. It is both what kept her apart and got her attention. We build our own cages, Ruby thought, I just keep bars around mine, "...you know you do, always volunteering to cover the silences, not filled by work. We're denying what will let us grow. The three of us have this sense of contagious, contaminated decay wrapping us into our own world. We'll be those people at that bar if we don't change. I don't want to be them."

They remained silent until they reached the Violet Pier Bar, jutted precociously onto the end of the pier, where the pylons and water met. The night is damp and the pier wood gleamed wet underneath them walking out to the bar, decamping at a spot left of center.

"Why now? What happened?"

"Emma. You're acting all strange, you can't even voice what you is going on, but I feel what you feel as much as you feel me. Something is drifting."

"No. Yes. I don't know. I guess."

"No, Em, I don't know exactly what it is, but it is something And you're scared. But scarier than what was in that bar?"

"Ruby. I'm just not sure. We're so different..."

"Truth? You cannot avoid life forever, even if you're scared."

"I know."

* * *

Regina sat at her desk, half a bottle of wine already gone, looking aimlessly out on the glowing city, as alive as ever at midnight. From this height, the cacophony of the streets dull. She had been at a corporate fundraiser. It seemed there were always more and more to attend, donate to, sit on the executive board with, fill all the time with. She is unsure how much emptiness she had left to fill, already lecturing at the universities medical unit, on the board for Avalon Asylum, the Opera committee, and the Arts Academy Foundation.

One weekend a month already donated to the Kahtya Foundation, monitoring the health of the cities Kahtya Slums, infested as they are with disease and poverty. This all in addition to her actual work running the neurological unit at Mathilde Avenue Research Hospital. Regina felt tired and desolate. All of these things, hollow objects and mirrored places were meant to be fulfilling her, yet had left her exactly where she currently was — alone.

Regina's life predetermined rather than predestined, she felt mostly her choices had been made for her, under the guise of "proper" reasons rather than for herself. Honestly, she could not say it was wrong, these decisions having made her wealthy, secure, successful and well respected.

Still, external expectations dictated her current choices, how her reality is presented over how she actually felt. She always feels the isolation acutely. Unattached, her fear had distilled into a spectacular career, but an empty life. Her mind drifted, inexplicably, to the delightful Emma and she felt that it was time to implement her plan. She found her phone and texted Ruby.

Regina's car service dropped her off at three am to Pacer. She stood, momentarily, outside before walking through the door. Ruby texted her to tell her the level they would be on. She slipped up to the second floor, looking around the surprisingly busy floor. Instruments were being played across the café. She saw Emma standing on the counter, bass strung heavily between her hands.

Regina mesmerised, hearing the melancholic heaviness of music, allowing thirty people to cohesively bind together, these remnants of the night scattered across the floor, sitting as enraptured as she. Regina walked around the edge of the crowd to sit at an empty space, watching Emma's nimble fingers across the four steel strings. A figure dropped down next to her as a clatter of bags landing at her feet, "Hi."

"Ruby," Regina smiled.

"I feel this may not be your type of music."

"It does not mean I cannot enjoy this," Regina laughed.

"Or enjoying her..."

"Why are you not playing?" Regina asked, ignoring Ruby's cheekiness.

"Went to get out bags," Ruby shrugged, "I was done."

Coffee's appeared within the hands of one of the cafe's barristers. Ruby took hers and Emma's and indicated the third is for Regina.

"Thanks," Regina admired, "Won't Emma's get cold?"

"Your welcome. Emma doesn't really like hot coffee."

They sat in silence, watching Emma finish that song and the next three, before jumping down and passing the instrument off. She came over and lent down to pick up her coffee before hesitantly looking at Regina, softly saying "Hey..." before flicking her eyes to Ruby, "Thanks, Red."

"Ready?'

"Yup," Ruby and Regina stood as Emma picked up her bag and walked together down to the ground level, into the silence. Regina leaned in and whispered, "thank-you," and as her lips pulled away, grazed them across Emma's cheek, "see you tomorrow."

They all walked out together and then separated, Ruby and Emma heading towards the monorail.

"Why was she here, Ruby?"

"I guess she likes you..." Ruby said, smiling mischievously.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing, I swear!" Ruby held her hands up, feigning innocence.

"Yes, of course you didn't. Instead I've a stalker. Now I understand why you took me to drink in that filthy bar."

Ruby snorted, "Who'd stalk you?"

"Shut up," Emma shouldered Ruby.

When Emma got home as she pulled out her mobile, a brown paper wrapped object floated inside of her bag. She unwrapped it to find a notebook and matching pen. It was covered in muted watercolour owls. Opening the book to the inside cover, swift, confident handwriting had inscribed her name across the page. Emma smiled.

* * *

Branches the thickness of her wrist slapped her across her face, gouging out her skin, ripping at her hands as she tried to shield herself, bloodying her. She felt her breath scream in her throat, stabbing cold ice into her lungs, her feet slipping against uneven brook side damp. She can't see, feels the sharp drop in creature as white mist descended on her, falling disastrously against the a pool of water in the middle of the ocean and she thrashed swallowing brackish water, violently throwing herself awake, Emma sat up.

She hadn't had a night like this for a long time. She did not have the luxury of falling apart. Killian depends on her stability. Even when out of control, he knows to return to her safety. When it was like this, it was as if her history, her memories were coming to eat her alive from the inside. Her desire for this infuriatingly persistent woman triggered the nightmares again, allowed them to creep back into her life.

* * *

The entire week of night shifts, Regina appeared at three am, effortlessly sexy, with a gift and shared a coffee. The week was intense and intimate until Ruby texted her that they would not be at work for the weekend. She gave no other explanation, yet said that they were returning to night shifts.

Regina drove alone to her country cottage, Westwood Manor, to spend the weekend with friends she had known longer then herself. The radio she left off, with the windows closed against the chill. This drive, while only three hours, is the only silence she seems to get, the only time she could truly be alone, allowing her to turn her beeper and mobile off.

Her mind swam with Emma, her dancing, her fluidity, the small part of herself hoped against reality that Emma would be thinking of her, twisted with the same plague of intuition. This is the reason she is driving, to see the trilogy of lovers to center her again, give her the insight she could not have of herself.

The cottage is her safe place, full of friends and memories binding them all together. Cruella, Maleficent and Mulan shared her life since their time at boarding school. As the four of them moved through school and university together, becoming a bubble of their own making, insulated with everything they did. Study, travel and desire spun into years of evolution into adulthood, loving each other beyond all else.

The highway to the Lake's district became smaller and thinner until twisting into a two lane road to connect all of the villages surrounding the two great lakes and the thirteen smaller ones hidden as they were within marshlands screaming with inhabited life. Lake St. Clair was heavily forested, villages and houses etched out of the ground with little visual impact to the flow of the lakes.

Regina swung through the six largest villages along the first largest lake, closest to the interconnected highways. Even at this hour, life was drifting lazily, and the next few smaller villages were completely quiet. Regina rounded over a bridge and the road squeezed smaller, rougher at the edges, as she continued a third of the way past the second lake where the villages slowed to a speckle and the cottages were isolated mansions prized for the century's old stone work and deep treated timbre.

It is on the cusp of darkness, the daylight sifting through, shaking peppered light gradually succumbing to night when she drove past the single cobbled row of shops, Miller's Inn, and hit a large gate fifteen minutes later that opened achingly at the push of a button recessed into her dashboard. The driveway was gravel and twisted through natural old growth forest. The cusp of change entranced Regina, fascinated and enticed her, sheltered her, encased her within this transition between the space in the middle.

She walked in the wood front doors as dusk was settling further into darkness and walked into the living room. After curling within the warmth of her friends, she sat on the rug in front of the fire, the round glass glinting within the orange-yellow glow.

Maleficent, lying across the sofa staring at the dark ceiling, said, "Who is she?"

"I don't know..." a wash of emotions surged through Regina as she attempted to explain how someone she only just met threw her into turmoil.

"What do you know, then," Mulan asked, curled up next to Cruella.

"Her name is Emma. She works at Pacer. When we shook hands, it felt inexplicable, of fire and forever. Her eyes are dragon flame green and sear right through me. She has short, spiky purple and pink hair that is a halo of colour every time she stands near light, her voice sounds like honey in the rain. She has a watercolour owl tattoo on her neck," hope floated in Regina's voice that in an ordinary moment, one simple and sweet and like any other, a squall can come and obliterate all else without warning. How within this ordinary moments, life transforms, mutates, changes.

"When did this happen?"

"Ten days ago. She's been on night shift all week, I've been meeting her at three in the morning the entire time," Regina's eyes were lost, hazy in the golden glow. The lull between the quartet was ancient and coiled across their thirty odd year friendship.

"On a scale of indifference to Disney princess, how lost are you?"

"Three thousand kisses and I would still not be done, three thousand kisses this second would not satisfy me. I lust for her beyond measure to which I could not live without her," Regina said, her face was part anguish, part euphoric desire to consume Emma, then she shrugged, "I sound absurd, even to myself."

"You love the idea of her more than yourself. Finally, someone has broken through," Maleficent smiled.

"I love you three more than me!" Regina said, "and this whole situation is ludicrous. How do I feel this way when I don't even know her."

"Its not the same. You know because that's why you don't live here with us. You understand the love we have together," Cruella indicated Mulan and Maleficent along with herself, "Is the love you want, and sometimes love is like is, friends who become lovers, yet this does not invalidate strangers having chemistry. Like you and Emma."

Regina shrugged, "yes, I know. She has...enthralled me."

"We can tell," chuckled Mulan, "Are we going to meet her?"

"I'm still working on it."

"Wait. You haven't been out with her yet?"

"Well..."Regina smiled as she giggled, "...I'm trying."

"Have you considered asking her, maybe?" Maleficent asked, "or do you need help with some farcical plan you've concocted?"

"I was thinking of a picnic in the greenhouse."

"Perfect. I've some new treats you can taste test," Cruella added.


	2. Invitation

II INVITATION

"Why aren't we on the same shift?" Emma asked, stocking shelves with Ruby in the peace of the early hour solitude, suspecting she knew the truth behind it.

Ruby, intentionally asked for the shift change, shrugged, "You need more recovery time than me."

"True," Emma laughed, "you deserve to be punished."

"Yeah, well, the weekend was exhausting enough. Maybe we should feign ignorance of classical music," Ruby grumbled

"Emma," came the clipped voice through her earpiece.

"Send," as an unfocused, concentrated look came into her eyes.

"Visitor. L1, A2," Beast's directions precise.

"Okay," Emma shrugged, saying to Ruby, "I've a visitor. Waiting near the café downstairs."

Ruby, knowing Regina waited, looked at her watch, "Its 3. You knock off anyway."

"I guess I'll see who it is first," frowning, "Killian wouldn't be off work yet," her face cleared as she looked at Ruby and smiled, "How about we form a band to keep us out of classical. Country music week is coming up. I should totally do it with the flute."

"I could use the sitar?"

They walked together to the elevators, and as they passed Calais coming out of the lifts, Ruby said "I'm going for fifteen."

He nodded as they entered the lift before Ruby continued, "Sounds like a duo to me. All we need is a name and to tell Beast."

"Flusi?" Emma suggested, laughing, "country music week needs a sitar – flute duo called Flusi."

Still laughing, they exited onto level one, heading past the back racks. Several people wandered around, the bitter cold outside pushing them into Pacer's central heating. Coming to the customised stage area, a raised platform adjacent to the band area located in the left hand corner, though staff dance performances rarely stayed on this stage, often co-opting rows of stock and counter space, as if some retail Parkour.

Standing in the recess between the stage and the multi-tiered café section is Regina. Emma and Ruby paused before Emma moved forward, a confounded smile on her face, "Regina?"

Regina, like the last time, is wearing a suit, this time a tailored charcoal grey pant suit, the hint of glossy blue shirt collar complimenting the deepness of her skin. Her heavy wool jacket is unbuttoned to the warmth and a bag sat on the floor between her feet. Indicating the bag, her voice evocative, depths of whiskey and rust shuddering through Emma as she said, "I thought you may like a knock off snack."

"Excuse me. I've just been called," Ruby discreetly slipped away, smiling at her friends incredulous expression.

"Thanks," Emma stumbled at Regina, her palms starting to sweat, heartbeat flickering into a faster beat, mind fluttered, racing thoughts crashing into each other with startling fury.

Emma hadn't seen her over the weekend she spent volunteering with Ruby for Snow, and after the week of soft attention, she missed her presence.

"Would you like me to wait here?"

"Ahh…Yes," Emma attempting, unsuccessfully, to keep the tremor out of her voice. After five days of showing up with a gift and a coffee, and with the three day break, here she is standing their, waiting, looking beautiful, offering more time. Emma gives herself permission to feel the relentless triggered emotions unwinding within her of hope.

"Okay," Regina smiled.

Emma took the staff elevator to the basement levels and edged into the staff locker room.

Ruby, waiting and smiling, "Well, Beethoven?"

Emma felt both exhilarated and terrified, "I don't know. What should I do?"

"Emma. Please. I see you watching. Waiting for her."

"I do not," Emma feigning exasperation, lied, ignoring the sense of longing she held for Regina, a lingering memory of sparked lust her attention initiated.

"Emma," sighed Ruby as only a best friend could.

"Okay, okay," Emma whisper laughed, "She does leave quite an impression."

"What did Killian say?"

"Nothing," Emma frowned, "not mentioned since Harper's when you said..." she shrugged, justifying to herself fantasies of Regina spiralling her away from Killian.

"You didn't tell Killian about 3am?" Ruby asked, "what did you tell Beethoven?"

"Um...I asked her to wait. No. Actually, she told me she'd would wait," Emma smiled at the certainty in Regina's voice, "and why would I? He's always disinterested in here."

Ruby leaned in, "remember that skanky bar..."

"Yes..." Emma nodded, "Ruby..."

"Then go..."

Emma smiled and stood from the bench, "I guess I could. Call me?"

Ruby nodded, pushing for any break in Emma's shell of isolation, "You know it. I need the gossip. Will call after eight."

Ruby stood and went to walk out, pausing to half turned back towards Emma, "We still on for dinner before shift tomorrow?"

Emma shoved her locker closed, crossing the gap between them, still flustered, replying, "Yes, of course. I remember."

As Ruby returned to level two, Emma walked out on level one. Regina was waiting exactly where Emma left her, "I'm ready."

"Okay," smiled Regina, picking up her bag to walk towards the door, exiting Pacer into the frigid air, iciness enveloping them. As Emma pulled her thinning jacket around her, Regina reached her gloved hand out and lightly touched Emma's arm, "I've this idea. Are you game?"

Emma nodded. She already committed to this, looking towards a black town car Regina indicated. A driver stood at the door, opening it with an imperceptible nod from Regina. They slipped in to the warmth of the interior and eased into traffic, constant yet muted. A shimmer of transparency drifted between them, a sense of serene tranquillity. Alignments within them shifting, changing towards a jigsaw fitting together. The heat of the interior loosened the conversation.

"So, are you going to tell me this idea?"

"No. Not at all. I want it to be a surprise," a knowing smile lulled on her lips.

"What, last week wasn't enough? And now to bringing me food at three am?"

"You have to start somewhere. May as well be memorable," Regina's deep smile was infectious.

Emma laughed with genuine delight, relaxing into the chocolate pool of Regina's eyes, "How'd you know I was working?"

"You don't need to know. Honestly."

"Really…." Emma raised her eyebrow, a whispered arch of a smile edging at the corners of her lips, already knowing Ruby sold her out.

An enigmatic smile crossed Regina's face, "I've had you on my mind since we met. I called Pacer and Beast said they could not release personal information pertaining to staff. So I was forced to reconsider my approach."

"Reconsider? I guess this new approach worked. Impressive," Emma said, "Yet its been days since you or I was in. Who was your contact? This insider?"

"I'm a determined person," Regina indiffidently shrugged before an outrageous smile shone across her face, "I just know how to get what I want. Scheduling difficulties meant I could not get in earlier. Who said I'd an insider?"

"Scheduling difficulties? What do you do?" Emma asked incredulously, diverting from the flush creeping across her face, as the car glided against the curb elegantly to a stop, "Where three am is a date time?"

Regina's warm smile distracted Emma long enough for the driver to open the door to the footpath Regina indicated, "Go on."

Emma stepped out of the car and onto the footpath, noticing immediately the concierge, suited and gloved, and perfectly straight trees recessed into the brick paved footpath. She exhaled swiftly, uncomfortable, her awkward stance betraying her, recognising the obvious signs of the wealthiest enclave of the city, Clovia Hill. Regina, basket in one arm, stood from the car and presumptuously slipped her hand through Emma's elbow efficiently wrapping them together, "Come."

Emma tensed at the close contact, having spent years curating a very select group of people who could touch her, with whom she could be intimate with. Everyone else she wore a very secure mask, protectively shielding herself.

Regina ignored this tensing to led the pair into a lobby, softened by recessed yellow gold lighting, past the desk clerk where she directed Emma to the elevator, and upon swiping a security pass, pressed the silver penthouse button. The elevator made no sound and shifted skyward with limited carriage movement. In an all too unnoticeable time, the door slid open to an ante-room. Regina, carefully observing Emma, unlocked the main double heavy oak doors and up a heavy black iron spiral stair case to the roof.

"Wow," Emma exhaled softly, "This is amazing. Beautiful. What is this place?"

"This is my home," Regina answered, leading Emma through the maze pathway of the glasshouse, teaming with vibrant plant life.

The cool black sky glittered above, kept out of the garden by delicate and intricately tailored glass walls and a crystalline liquid glass roof, bound by cohesive black twisted metal patterned spider webs. Emma could hear water tumbling over stones and splashing into a pool next a small grass recess.

For Emma, it is breathtaking, her sense of wonder twisting away towards the day. Regina led Emma through to a small timber bench sitting at the edge of the stone waterfall and began to unpack roasted walnuts, honeyplumb cherries and warm mulled wine. She had hedged her bets by taking it with her, in case Emma was unwilling to come out with her, let alone accompany her home.

"This is a garden," Emma breathed, "But how," whispering as she reached out to caress a fern, before standing to look into the pool, refracting the distorted night sky beauty.

"Contractors, money and influence are very useful," Regina, taking unfettered pleasure in Emma's visceral response to the rooftop glasshouse, replied.

"Immeasurably beautiful. Really."

"Thank you. Here," placing a plate and wine on the edge of the timber bench.

Emma returned to pick them up and sit down, still gazing around, taking in the splendour and details. She made sure to avoided places of natural beauty in this city, escaping any chance for reminders of her youth. It is the attraction this city, full of cement and glass towers, banishing darkness from her so she could ignore he heart.

Glossy lights helped Emma keep the wild away, allowing her to leave her history coiled in the dark. Yet, this, now was enchanting to Emma, spiralling her into memories unopened for a long while. She drifted across this memory plateau before the smell of rubies beneath the vine and salt upon the lips woke her up.

The heaviness of her mind deepened her voice as she said, "Thank you for showing me this. I would never have thought this could possibly exist in a city such as this."

Regina drifted with the hazards dancing across Emma's dragon fire green eyes and waits suspended, timeless before she returns to fold back into herself. Regina smiles, both grateful and in awe of Emma, a gift of presence in the garden sanctuary. Regina collected herself replying with a gentle laugh, "Well. They are rare. Unless you follow strangers with them home often."

Emma shrugged defensively, instantly wrapped inwards around herself, shutting Regina out, "Eh. You were allowed to do this?"

"What kind of answer is that?" said Regina, in an attempt to lift the air between them, "It helps when you own the building."

"I was taught all about strangers and the dangers they represent. All manner of strangers," Emma's face became troubled, drifting towards darkness before quickly forcing herself to smiling, and asking, "You own this building?"

The warmth on Regina's face fell, wavered for a moment, hesitating at the strange seriousness in Emma's voice and within her reply. Regina watched the delicate features bleed together, busy and traumatised, pulling troubling memories back together in a circular paradigm. Concern filtered heavily as she asked, "What did I say?"

Emma, overwhelmed, shook herself before settling into a more radiant smile, answering, "Sorry. Nothing. This looks perfect, smells divine. This building is huge, you own it?"

Regina waved off Emma's comment, shrugging, drifting into indifference, "It is as it is."

"Apathy in privilege is scandalous," Emma teased.

"No. Never apathetic. Complicated," Regina, half joking, said, hands up in submission.

"Okay," Emma understood complicated. It dominated her life, structured her past, dictated her future.

Regina looked sharply at Emma for such unequivocal acceptance of the explanation, before allowing it to pass. Regina in observing this intense young lady is fascinated by her unreadability, easily seeing why she left such an impression at Pacer and had since remained indelibly etched inside Regina.

The pair nibbled on the food, sipping the wine, relaxing towards each other in intricate spirals of warmth and pleasure, Emma inescapably enthralled. Regina leaned to kiss Emma, opening that which she could never get back: hope. She had spent her whole life anticipating herself, keeping her darkness hidden, the fractured parts of herself unfixed and in an instant within this kiss, gentle and soft mixed with wine and cinnamon, tore her apart. Time suspended, stretched inside two souls emerging, awakening each other. Emma and Regina cocooned intimately, preciously devouring tastes of each other.

* * *

"Breakfast?" Regina's coffee machine hummed, splattering dark liquid into the mug.

"Yes," Emma, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, asked, "what time is it?"

"Three," the machine quietened to a spitting stop, "Coffee?"

"Please. Do you have juice? Lunch would be more appropriate at this point."

"Yes. Have any idea of where we should breakfast? Or, in fact, Lunch?" Regina smiled at her, handing her a glass of juice, turning to push the machine to life.

"Why are you smiling like that?"

"Because you're finally here."

"We've only just met..." Emma felt odd and out of place, yet already not alone. She did know how to process this. That missing puzzle piece oddly shaped shifted into Regina, who had broken so far into her safe zone that she caused the tide to rush in again, coursing through the infinite space between her thighs, "Oh...I've an idea for lunch."

Regina felt the charge spark, the shift in air flow, the scent upon her tongue. She came around the bench and drifted into the abyss, enjoying her tasting faintly of tangerine and honey, her taste intoxicating. In that moment, she let go, finally, against Regina's tongue, splashing out against her, arching into her mouth. This, now, is inescapable, this irredeemable hope unravelling between them. How could she forgive herself for wanting this beyond herself, wanting this floating ecstasy so far beyond everything her conciseness swept her beneath as she lost it.

* * *

Lying over the sofa, softly sweaty, tangled in each other, "This is an interesting first date."

"Yes. Unexpected." Emma felt the salt deep in her voice, an undercurrent of Regina's husky tone, continued, "I actually need to go..."

"Working?"

"Yes, and I'm pretty sure Ruby will just have to know what happened."

"Your number?"

"Is written on your fridge," Emma stood and began to find and pull on her scattered clothes, suddenly unsure and shy, thinking her impulse control is completely shattered. Emma stuttered her goodbye as she fled, panic fizzing inside of her.

Regina lay on the sofa after Emma slipped out, smiling, feeling exhilarated. She pushed herself up and walked over to the counter, picking up her mobile, to find sixteen missed text messages, four missed calls and sole voice mail and was grateful she turned it on silent. They were all from Maleficent, Mulan and Cruella. Before checking on any, she walked over to her fridge, and saw the number scrawled across a scrap of paper. Typing in the number, she sent off a text to Emma, *Coffee after shift?*

Her reply was swift and succinct, *Shft all over plc this wk.*

*Dinner?*

*Mday get off at 8.*

*My Place?*

*kk.*

Smiling, Regina worked her way through the text messages and voice mail and then made her way to call them back. Maleficent picked up, "How was it?"

"Better than expected. She just left."

"Oh. That is exceptionally good." Maleficent said, "When are you seeing her?"

"Monday night," Regina dropped her voice, concern filtering through, "but she kind of left strangely."

"It was unexpectedly quick," Maleficent said simply.

"Yes. I suppose, but it feels excruciatingly slow," Regina sighed, "I need to shower and

sleep."

"Probably," Maleficent laughed, "Bye."

* * *

Emma walked into their favourite diner closest to home, Sahntyna and sweept her eyes around. The noisy chatter jarring after the silence of Regina's. Ruby is slouched in a booth, her hands greasy with salted cheesy bread, while Killian ate his thick shake with a spoon. Emma shuffled out of her jacket and slid into the opposite side of the booth to Ruby, shoving Killian over.

Sahntyna is in a converted old building that once had been a grand cinema before fading in the void of television and home entertainment, before becoming a roller disco slash bar. Owner Sahntyna made no effort to renovate and instead left the original pastel pallet, neon vinyl booths with perspex plastic tables rimmed in high-vis silver. This neon disco light sign still bolted to the red brick back wall. The wait staff suited the decor, hired from their faded lives left dimmed by the shifting reality around them.

"Hello Lover girl..."

"Shut up," Emma rolled her eyes as she grinned, ripping a mouthful of bread off and shoving it past her teeth, "I'm starving. Have you ordered?"

"Of course, the usual," Ruby laughingly responded, "So, stories to tell..."

"Stop smirking like that, Rubes. There's nothing to tell."

"Liar, don't even pretend," Ruby shaking her finger at Emma in mock anger, "I know there's something"

"Ruby," Emma smiled as her mind drifted to all the infinite moments she shared with

Regina, the singularity incited something inside of her. That small ache of loneliness lifting toward a feeling that she herself could not define.

"Pleeeeeeassssse."

"So you want more than the car service, penthouse and the rooftop garden?"

"That's so news 12 hours ago, I was barely awake still. It does sound special. How do you get a rooftop garden onto an apartment...but you know this isn't what I meant."

"Ruby, I mean it, STOP," Emma laughed as her face burned red.

"I knew it!" Ruby exclaimed in delight, "She's good. Come on, tell me."

Their laughter interrupted by the food being delivered. After the waiter left, Emma though a mouthful eyed off Ruby, "I know it was you. You told her I was dancing that first day. You gave her my shift details. You sneaky little…"

"No, not at all…..you two obviously had something. I just….simply….facilitated it. A little," Ruby said, still laughing. The friends ate, laughed, comforting each other as only old friends can.

"So. When are you seeing her again?" Killian asked.

"I'm not exactly sure..." Emma blushed at the immediate heckling from her friends, "I gave her my number. She texted after I left, and, ah dinner on Monday."

"Yes. Well."

"You seem flustered," Killian said, waiting. He knew there is still something needing to be said.

"Its not like I do this often. She's...intriguing. It felt weird, though. Leaving this afternoon. It's like I had nothing to say, you know, after what happened," Emma shrugged, "when we couldn't shut up earlier."

"If she calls?"

"I guess. I want to."

"The seduction of the sea, all types of broken are beautiful, we are all bandits on land and pirates at sea, seeking the impossible with magic," Killian smiled.

"Why didn't you get her number?" Killian pushed against her, mocking her.

"Because..." Emma thumped him, "...I gave her mine. I've it now she texted."

The friends ate, gently continuing to tease Emma before Ruby said, "Come on, we've to get to work."

Killian stayed sitting in the booth, waving at Ruby and Emma as pulling their coats on, "I'm meeting a newbie here...taking him to work."

"Bye," Emma said as they slipped out.

"What's wrong?" Ruby asked, walking out of Sahntyna and moving toward the monorail.

"It feels sudden. Too fast, like I can't catch my breath," Emma's frown turned into a smile, hinting at the edge of her face, "but then it feels like I want her beyond measure, like I've known her before. I don't know how else to put it."

"Look at this in context, Emma, isn't this how most things start, attraction? And a date? It went far beyond kissing from your reaction and you'll be seeing her again?"

"Of course. I'm exceptionally interested in kissing her in any, every conceivable context. I want to consume her..." Emma smiled, "even as I want to run away from her..."

"Seriously, in context? That's fabulous..." Ruby couldn't contain her laughter as Emma's face flushed, "...But, also, tell her you want to go slower if you need to."

"Her lips are unfathomably delicious," Emma sighed, "...she tastes of coffee, cinnamon and lipstick, no matter the time. It's intoxicating, and of course you would say it's fabulous, traitor who set this up..."

"...says the friend who wants it to continue."

"Where is she taking you?" Ruby asked, "Next date?"

"She is cooking me dinner," Emma twisted in her jacket.

"At the penthouse?"

"Yes. Where else would she cook for me?"

"So, you're braving another adventure at her apartment? Don't look so terrified," Ruby pulled her backpack off.

"She confuses me," Emma, characteristically, scrunched up her nose, "I'm scared, Rubes. Really, I don't understand why one small, quiet, simple meeting has led to this."

"It's not unheard of, you know, of people having an immediate connection. Rare, but it happens," Ruby snorted, "And no, she doesn't. You do that all by yourself. Truth? Don't avoid this, even if your scared."

"I..." Emma couldn't reply. She didn't really need to. Ruby always knew, so she changed her tactic, "my life is too full."

"No. Its not," Ruby sighed, "You made it full."

"Killian..." she couldn't give up against Ruby aggressively calling her out.

"Who disregards you entirely. He only wants you when its convenience. You know he uses everything he can to get his own damn way. You let him. You hide behind him as much as he uses you," brutality is the only route left for Ruby, continues in spite of Emma wincing, "You're scared, but its not okay to acquiesce to it."

"Maybe." Emma hesitates, "Possibly."

"You need to get the fuck over it," Ruby hugged her, "do not under any circumstances cancel your date."

"I know, I know," Emma raised her hands in submission, Ruby would always call her out.

"Good. Unique is what you are. Right after shift?"

"Yes."

"Excellent."

"Don't look so smug..." Emma slapped Ruby across her shoulder.

"I can't help it."

"Thanks," Emma shifted into her jacket and shifting her backpack.

* * *

Regina stood at her bedroom windows, looking out on the bright artificial lights of the city, dulling the clarity of the stars. It is closer to one than midnight. Regina felt absence, her apartment empty without Emma already, far too silent and her bed too cold. Regina never slept well, yet now held the absence of Emma far to close to let it go. The city always the shield she could hide behind, now it reflected her loneliness.

Her life had been overtaken by her neurosurgical career. She consulted on many unique, and high profile cases by which she built a formidable reputation. Maleficent, Cruella and Mulan are her respite from this world refusing to sleep, the cottage at Lake St. Clair her enclave of quiet. Lake St. Clair is where she kept her sacred self, how she sustained herself, yet now that shimmered to encompass this unexpected delight.

She remained at once disconnected and connected, surrounded and isolated. She fondled the phone in her hand, unsure of her wanting to call the three out at the cottage. It jittered in her hand, causing her to jump, "Hello?"

"What is wrong? We can hear you from here..." Maleficent's warm voice dripped down the phone, history from the summer her mother brought her back from travelling the country after graduation bouncing between them. Maleficent had convinced Regina to visit Cruella away from the cities distractions before returning to university.

Cruella was already working in an internship with one of the cities largest architectural firms satellite office in the lakes district, and in her spare time, travelled around the villages until she stumbled across the abandoned tragedy that transformed their lives. She showed Regina and Maleficent that summer visit, the teaming life in the marshlands, the sleepy villages and blue-green water flowing between the lakes and subsidiaries.

"Thinking of her."

"I thought you said it went well?" Mulan hummed. All four melting together, supplying each other courage, teaching her family did not mean blood, but choice, "And that you'll be seeing her very soon?"

"I did, and I will," Regina answered, not having to say that Emma held for her a future she could not name yet desired. Regina considered her options to combat the flurry of emotions she was currently feeling, and the overwhelming fantasy one was that involved her wanting. Emma here all of the time, wanted to fill her life with the future they could have.

Regina remembered herself, rebellious and still only nineteen, in the in-between of her life and under the spell of her affair with Maleficent, testing her new recklessness by purchasing the Manor House that Cruella may have discovered yet they all fell in love with. They felt the brokenness of it, the desiccation of the Attic open to the sky, the cracked and broken plaster crumbling from the internal stone, the wet, damp, flooded basement. Even the land bullied, overgrown and abandoned, a drifted sense of neglect. They felt of themselves all of these things, and this is where they belonged.

"So what's the problem?" Cruella sighed into the conversation. Cruella felt beyond anything else she was right where she should be as she finally found a place where the trilogy of heartbeats united in bliss. She desired for Regina to feel the same perfection, to hear the honey of her own voice.

Cruella began design renovations back when she moved to the closest village with a B&B, Kaxis Wood, a half hour from the infant row of houses on the way to the manor, Millers Inn, which serviced the silent and peaceful hiking paths. They visited every day, feeling more themselves there than at any other time. The quiet rush of passion between Maleficent and Emma waned back to friendship over the summer at the lakes, but always, the Manor remained.

"The waiting and the not knowing," Regina quiet, "if she has fallen as quickly as me."

"What makes you think she hasn't?"

"I texted her to confirm when we could see each other again and she seemed reticent...I don't know."

"She was reticent over text?" Maleficent asked.

"Yes..." Regina shrugged to herself, "I sound insane, I know I don't know her."

"Regina, calm down. You've had one week of being delightfully sweet and one ultra intense date and you will make something spectacular for dinner," Cruella said.

"Regina," Maleficent's voice gentle, "Seriously, relax. Take it one date at a time. Or, you know, continue to date..."

"Relax? What does that mean?" Regina appreciated the non-judgement in their voices at the lunacy of her behaviour.

"It means she is coming to dinner."

"True," Regina sighed, "thanks."

* * *

Emma finished her shift with Ruby and walking out at just past eight, her nerves sparking. Ruby paused as they walked out just past eight, "How are you getting there?"

"Ferry across Violet," knowing the river would be dark under the night sky.

"Okay. See you tomorrow?"

"I switched my shift with Estelle...I've two days off..."

"And you didn't tell me?" Ruby smiling wirely.

"Yeah, cause I didn't want that look...or to have to put up with your shit..."

"You're just delaying the inevitable..." Ruby smiled wickedly, walking off towards the monorail, leaving Emma walked in the opposite direction, making her way to the ferry and across the river. She walked quickly through the streets of Briar District and before loosing her courage, past the doors of the Ellysion, overlooking the river.

The desk clerk smiled as she walked up, breath ragged and uneven, "Go on up, Miss Sky."

"Thank you."

Emma walked to the elevator bank as the desk clerk picked up the phone. Her mind spiralled into everything she hated about herself — she lived in a minuscule apartment in a slum-adjacent suburb because she is not worthy of anything better. What did Regina want with her? Charity case?

Emma, overwhelmed, attempted to calm herself down, yet her heartbeat rapidly continued, making it worse. She hit the penthouse button and the elevator smoothly hushed upwards. As the elevator door opened into Regina's ante-room, her chest is constricted against her rapid heartbeat.

Regina opened her door, with her smile quickly falling to growing concern at the sight of Emma's face stumbling out of the elevator, reflecting her spiral out of control.

"Can...Can...I use your...bathroom," Emma stammered.

Regina stood still about a meter in front of her, opening her arms, respecting her personal space, while inviting her saying softly, "Unless you would rather come here?"

Emma stood, swaying on her feet, her breath jagged, wary.

Regina simply waited, softly smiling, adding, "for as long or as little as you decide."

Emma, feeling dizzy and confused, sensed Regina recognised and understood the panicky fear creeping indescribably through her body. Emma took one step and felt her knees wobble. She paused, wanting desperately for her heartbeat to come back inside her body. She took another step, willing her eyes to focus.

One more step and she would be in Regina's grasp. She took another step before stumbling the rest of the way into Regina, who wrapped Emma inside of her arms. Emma's breath still ragged, her heart beating out against her rib-cage, bruising her soul from the inside.

Regina strengthened the hug and whispered, "I have you."

Emma lost time, standing there forever waiting for her heartbeat to receded to a normal rhythm. Regina made no indication she had anything but patience, allowed her the time she needed. Emma calmed enough to risk unassisted standing and withdrew slightly, mortified she had worked herself into such a state as to panic the moment she walked in.

Regina offered her hand to Emma and waited patiently while she hesitated, smiled and took it. Gently, Regina led Emma out of the ante-room and into the living room, encouraging her to sit on the lounge. Walking to the kitchen, she brought back a glass of water and placed it before Emma before she sat down next to her.

"I'm sorry," Emma's said, looking at the floor.

"There's no need to be."

"Really. I am." Emma lifted her eyes to Regina's, holding her gaze.

"Apologies are unnecessary. Our last date was rather intense and quick," Regina smiled, "and I don't want you to be uncomfortable."

Emma leaned over and drank half of her water. Unsure of what to say or how to explain the unexplainable, she is surprised when she hears herself say, "I want to be here. Even if I am uncomfortable."

Regina broke into a smile making Emma flush, "I'm glad you want to be here. I want you to be here. When you are ready, we can talk about what makes you uncomfortable. Would you like to eat?"

"It smells divine."

"I take that as a yes," Regina stood to served dinner, plating it expertly and delivering it to mahogany polished wood table. Emma stood to help her, however Regina turned and said, "No, no. Sit down."

Emma picked a chair at the square table, two places set perfectly next to each other. It is intimate, and she smiled at the considerate gesture. Their second date becoming as unique as their first, in spite of her panicked behaviour. Regina poured wine into their glasses and sat beside Emma, "I hope you like it."

Emma tenderly replied, "Thank you."

"You haven't even tried it yet."

"That's not really the point. I'm thanking for you for the consideration and effort."

They ate dinner, chatting about general loves — music, authors, movies. Eventually, sated by desert, Regina refilled their glasses, held her free hand out to Emma, who graciously reached for the warm touch. Regina led them up to the rooftop to lay on the grass and stare at the sky.

Their voices, low, intertwined around each others, engaged in enticing conversations until they fell asleep in the deep, quiet hours of the morning, curled into each other until the sun crystallised over the sky causing them to shiver against the cold light.

"Its still early," Regina pushed herself up after disentangling, still mostly asleep, "Come. Lets go to bed."

She stood to pull Emma up, linking their fingers and stumbled delicately down the stairs and into Regina's bedroom, falling into bed and curling around each other again to sink back into a deep sleep. Hours later, still nestled in Emma's embrace, Regina woke slowly, to see her angelic face, eyes fluttering with slowly dawning consciousness.

"Good morning."

"Hi," Emma leaned the few inches and grazed her lips over Regina's. As she leaned back, Regina followed, smoothing her lips against Emma's. Both smiled, infamous shyness sticking them both.

"Shower?"

"Yes, I think so," Emma sat up, realising they are still wearing the clothes from yesterday.

"You can borrow something," Regina pushed off the covers, stood and led Emma her en-suite, which is bigger than Emma's entire flat, the shower along one side big enough for six.

Regina pushing temperature buttons on a panel next to the shower until water began to fall from the ceiling within. Emma, tugging out of her clothing, gasped. Regina flushed as she quickly undressed. Her bathroom is ostentatious, a luxury she is luckily able to customise. Moving silently into the shower together, their bodies easily warming together under the hot water.

"I'm sorry about last night."

"Why? There is no need to be. Stop apologising."

"People often panic your home?"

"You're not people," Regina moved up to Emma, looking her directly in the eye to hold her there, "You're definitively not people."

Emma trembled as Regina pulled her into a hug. Standing still for several minutes, Emma relaxing against Regina's naked body before shifting ever so slightly and whispering into Regina's ear, "You're definitively not people, either. You're unexpected."

"Is that what happened last night?"

"Yes. I wasn't expecting...any of this."

"Neither was I, but this week's been...I like you."

"I. Like. You." Emma's lips whispered against Regina's ear, inciting a familiar warming throb.

Still, she waited for Emma, understood the hesitation and unfamiliarity. Emma ran her tongue down Regina's jawline before flicking her eyes to meet Regina's briefly before pushing their lips together.

Water dripping down their faces, Regina moved to deepen their kiss, inadvertently snorting water up her nose. Giggling softly, she drew back from Emma, who took the invitation to continue down to the pulse point in her neck, drifting down to crest of her breasts, sucking the nipple lightly, releasing it under her teeth.

Regina groaned slightly as Emma whispered her lips down her stomach and along the ridge of her pubic bone before releasing herself against Regina's clit, bracing her with a leg over her shoulder. The hard matting was tickling her knees as she reached under the leg secured over her shoulder and thrust three fingers in just as she popped Regina's clit out of her mouth.

Regina convulsed over the top of her, as Emma devoured her thick fluid while moving her fingers faster, her teeth brushing against the swollen nub, Regina's chest hitching as she moaned, "don't stop...please..."

She felt Regina's fingers grip her head as suddenly her body tightened for the second time and Emma stilled her fingers movement, removing them to brace the body above her, her other hand relaxing the leg draped over her shoulder down and entangling hands within Regina's as she came fabulously above her.

Emma moved to encircle Regina's body still cresting from her release. The water flowed over them as Regina gradually started breathing regularly again.

Emma released her supportive hold and turned Regina around, grabbing the body wash, "Let's finish this shower, yes?"

Regina numbly nodded, relaxing under Emma's hands extending around her, slippery bubbles lathering her body, responding to her sweet affections. This is her new favourite activity, and she wanted to revisit it as often as possible. As they stood from the shower, Regina reached over to hand her a towel. Emma giggled when Regina handed her a fluffy dressing gown, as she finished drying herself.

"Is this what you meant by clothes?"

"Yes," Regina leaned in, tugging Emma's lips in with her own, "its perfectly adequate."

"For what?" Emma hummed, leaning into Regina.

"Taking off later," kiss, "would you like," kiss, "something to eat?"

"Hmmmm," Emma pulled the fluffiness around her, "I'm hungry."

Walking to the kitchen, Regina moved to the cavernous fridge, pulling eggs and cream out, "Scrambled?"

"Please."

They spent the rest of the day between the bed and the shower.


	3. Spark

III SPARK

Emma finished her routine on the café service bar and walked down to the basement staff room. Her locker is in the middle of a bank of identical ones, and she held her index finger to the scanner prompting it softly pop open. Extraditing her mobile, she walked back to the kitchen and sat with her bottle of water. There is a single text message waiting, a hint of anticipation flickered within her heart as she saw Regina's name.

"Pick you up EOS?" Emma smiled and texted back, put her phone back into her locker before returning to the floor.

"How was dinner?" Ruby asked when Emma found her.

"Come on, we're off," Emma turned back around, "I'd a panic attack when I got there."

"Why?" Ruby said, walking with her to the elevators.

"She makes me feel so out of control. It confuses me, but I kind of like it," Emma pushed for the staff basement.

"How did Regina react?"

"Spectacularly," Emma rolled her eyes, "Of course."

"She does seem super controlled."

"Yes, except when it comes to me, I guess," Emma feeling a mixture of inadequacy and jubilation, as they exited the elevators and walked into the staff room, "She seems so sure about me."

"Do you want to go to Harper's?" Ruby pulling her bag out of her locker, as Emma grabbed her stuff and walked into the staff kitchen, digging into her bag.

"No," Emma said, "Sorry. Plans."

Ruby quickly slipped back into the staff kitchen where Emma was standing. Emma lifted her head from her mobile, "Ready?"

"Plans? Regina? Where?"

"You look far too delirious. Its perturbing."

"Why are you still here? Go."

"Ruby. Will you stop pushing me. Are you coming?"

Ruby stopped pouncing from foot to foot, "What. Walk up with you? Why, what you guys doing?"

"Lets go and I don't know."

The pair walked up to ground level, and started walking over to the café.

"Oh, Please, not with that buzz face, precious. You just spent two days with her and dinner already?"

Emma saw Regina sitting at one of the tables patiently waiting, as she snorted and shouldered Ruby.

"Hi," Emma said.

"Hello," Regina smiled, and with a swift nod of her head, "Ruby."

"Hi and goodbye," Ruby laughing, turned to walk out and waved her hand, "see you tomorrow, Ems."

"Do you have something in mind?" Emma asked as Regina stood.

"Yes. I do." Regina rounded the table and walked down the two steps to where Emma was standing, reaching out her hand. Emma lifted her hand in response to the offer, a small buzz warmed her with their kiss and turned to walk out to the busy street, "You mind if we walk?"

"No. I don't mind at all."

"Why's Ruby smiling like a maniac?"

"She is unreasonably excitable," Emma snorted, cool air still lingering from winter, setting fire to her veins while snow crunched underneath their feet.

Regina smiled, "About what?"

"Us, her nefarious plan worked. I'm surprised she hasn't texted me yet," laughing while walking just under six blocks with white-yellow globes of light clinging to their path, chatting, fingers entwined until Regina led them into a lobby and over to the elevators.

Regina pushed "E" for the top floor. Emma tensed in the walk across the lobby, exhaled oddly at this action, "Eloise Club?"

"Yes. The soufflé is stunning."

"Eloise Club? Isn't it membership only?"

"Yes. Membership I've held since I was 12."

"But..."

Regina leaned in quick and kissed Emma as the elevator silently moved, "It is fine and what is wrong with here?"

"Nothing, I guess." Emma said, looking at the ridiculous ornateness of the Club penthouse as the doors opened and they stepped into the reception room.

"The food here is really amazing, its open, not busy and doesn't require a booking."

"There's no such thing as booking in a member only place..." Emma snorted "we could've gone to many places don't require booking."

"We can go..."

"No. No. You can choose the place. I already made a choice," Emma looked at Regina, who flushed as their secret smiles mirrored each others.

"I feel you are a snob..." Regina said

"I'm not," Emma giggled, exasperated.

"To prove this, I've an idea," Regina sat them at a table with a spectacular view of the city.

"I don't need to prove anything," Emma replied, adding, "What idea?"

"We both show each other our versions of the city."

"Sorry?"

"This is an obvious place for me to come. You would've gone somewhere else, that's obvious to you? I want to know you better. We show each other the city we know to get to know each other, and we each have a 24 hour period to do this."

"I'm in," Emma sparkled at the challenge, "as long as I get to choose which 24 hour period."

"Of course," Regina enchanted with her wicked smile, "When's your next shift?"

"Tomorrow midday shift. Why?"

"Just asking. What's Belle like?"

"What do you mean?" Emma said, the swiftness Regina changed topics unsettling.

"There are many rumours."

"Rumours or gossip? About Belle or Beast?"

"Both about both, I suppose."

"All misdirection. Beast's more powerful than anyone suspects, less than what people fear. She's not bordering on AI, she is AI. Belle's not one for playing games. She loves Beast and programming. Real people, not so much."

"How many people know?"

"That Beast is AI?" Regina nodded confirmation of her question as Emma continued, shrugging, "Everyone."

"And Belle?"

"Mostly Pacer staff are close to Belle. We became non-tech guinea pigs Beast keeps on speed dial," Emma smiled, "I don't know how it works. Really. Belle attempts to explain algorithms and learning mechanisms, but it doesn't mean much. Beast is fun to play with though. She's a gamer."

"Why did Belle name her Beast?" Regina pursued.

"Belle's been developing Beast since she was a child and is named after Belle's inability to pronounce her Aunt Charming's name."

"Charming Zephira, the CEO of Pacer?"

"Yes, that'd be her. You know her?"

"Mostly by reputation. That's quite a mutation of her name. Beast has you on speed dial?"

"Yeah. She is a learning program. The closer you are, the more Beast wants to find things out. She'll call to ask things, clarify human stuff, I guess. She's the operating system on my phone, Iviesphere, runs my calender, has access to my computer," Emma shrugged, "Don't know about the name thing, just what I was told."

"You don't find that invasive?"

"No, I've known them for sixish years, I guess. Since just before I started to work at Pacer. Belle's my friend. I've..." Emma mused for a minute, "...become used to it? It's not something I think about. She is no more invasive than anything else in my life. It's convenient."

* * *

"The Eloise Club?" Ruby asked, sipping her coffee.

"Yes. It was...I don't know" Emma struggled to describe what she was feeling, even in the comfort of Granny's.

"Ectoria's Eloise Club?" Killian confirmed, "that fancy hotel?"

"Yes guys," Emma pulled at the garlic bread, twisting her fingers around and tugging, "and don't be strange."

"Why's it strange?" Killian frowned.

"No, you two are strange. It's not the end of the world."

"You went to the most exclusive private membership club in the city," Ruby deadpanned, "and you're calling us strange?"

"It was midnight. There was practically no one there," Emma shrugged, "It was...elegant. I was still dressed from work."

"Your hair must have gone down well," Killian laughed, masking the hysterical denial of his toxic, obsessive jealousy bubbling inside is chest, "Why arn't you with her tonight?"

"Regina's just oblivious to how uncomfortable it was," Emma rolled her shoulders, "She's working late. Will see her tomorrow."

"I thought you said no one was there?" Ruby said, moving the garlic bread out of the way as the burgers came over, "So you mean you were being unreasonably uncomfortable."

"Don't be pedantic."

"Seriously. Don't be so sensitive. Its simply a real place attached to illusionary ideas. Stop the delusion in your head that the place matters and what does it become?" Killian mumbled a philosophy they were taught as children around his burger.

"Smart ass," Emma kicked him under the table.

"OW! Don't blame me that Beethoven took you to Eloise."

"Both of you suck."

"Oh, but she is so great..." Ruby responded, batting her lashes.

"And I bet she doesn't suck..." Killian said.

"That's it..." Emma threw sugar satchels at them both.

* * *

The rush of new love overwhelmingly messy and undefined for Emma, uneasily shifting along unmarked pathways, obscured by an ethereal mist. There is no balance here, only passion mixed with terror, love around fear, joy and loss.

Emma drifted into a haze of work and Regina, who held their universe together, while unstringing herself from the world. Her friendships fractured with time spent focused on the minute curve at the corner of Regina's lips, her history is rewritten in the curve of her spine stretched in pleasure.

Emma's knew her life had been composed since birth expelled her, angry, to the world. She never noticed the notes binding her own with Killian's as they had always simply been, existing together, until the irrevocable truth had forced her to break from this melody intertwining them together.

This bond had kept them cocooned within each other until Emma, unable to remain tethered indefinitely to their story alone, found Regina. Ruby and Killian drifted, unspun in lieu of Emma's abandonment, connections of friends and brothers untwisting from scabbed wounds.

Killian stalked through dirty streets, shivering against the biting cold. He loved winter, it reminded him you could never be truly safe or secure, even while craving the stability and comfort of the other half of his soul. He felt Emma's defection from their own empire keenly, as they had only ever been forcibly separated and he despised it.

Killian returned to the silence of the apartment in the dull grey glow of late afternoon waning towards night. The kitchen contained a sink, table and a fridge in one corner, on this a magnet held two sheets of paper. Shift timetables. He never had to look before, as Emma's disdain for people held her close to himself, until this new figure emerged with a new story to entwine in their own. He wasn't ready.

Perspective unique to experience. Killian hadn't felt true solitude since he followed her away from Tempenka. He had been following her his whole life, sister, wife, destiny, soul and is unable to imagine a life without her in this unfamiliar, evolving world.

Killian struggled to understand why they ran away from home and felt the terror of responsibility for their choice that night, the finality throwing them into adulthood. Emma had been trapped at home, and made him feel as if she had reached this sharp point she needed to defeat and it impelled her to a greatness.

For himself, running had left violent bruises failing to heal, as he followed her, unequivocally, abandoning their family. The pain of days fleeing across a scared country to this black hole city, both old and dark and full of lost people in this new world.

There was nothing natural for Killian to connect with and every time they are separated, a clouded darkness refused to lift from him. Emma protected him even as she retreated from him, forcing him to extend beyond their own environment. In this devoid space, he developed a monologue with the world to avoid one with himself.

His work as an erotic dancer at all male review hot spot Malaree's limited him to the safety of the night, understanding its parameters kept him from the gritty blue day. Nights may have passed without seeing Emma, yet the continuity between had them remained unfiltered.

Emma shuffled away, though, leaving the bond between them drawn in crayon. His sense of abandon multiplied, knowing Ruby had the contact he desired, working the same shifts and having time Killian simply could not. Killian drifted into comparing the world he had and the one he wanted, but either without Emma was torture. He spun through routines at Malaree's until new staff were hired, and through this fog, he found a delicate face knocking in the darkness.

Killian found solace in his hardness, and for the first time in weeks found himself standing rather than hovering over quicksand. This new boy, Robin, breathing next to him was irregular and heavy, stuttered, whimpering inside his sleep. Killian held his trauma, tied into knots and kept over a life of hiding and lying, yet understood Robin confronted his own every night in his sleep.

* * *

Ruby crept through the lack of contact by doing as she always had done when isolation invaded too far into her scattered remains, gathered them together and assembled them as completely as she could into a tortured mosaic, gates of purgatory.

Ruby had lived with loss since birth, how easy it was to subsume the past and how frighteningly easy it is to destroy oneself. Her shifts remained mirrored with Emma's, however that time did not amount to much with Emma daydreaming over lustful memories. Mournful texts drifted from Killian until his attentions turned towards more physical distractions.

Ruby fell towards her compositions, music the only concept capturing her completely every time. The grains of the city were always dark, embedded as they were in the souls of its citizens growing over time, blue and black seeped in history whilst shadow boxing with the present. These currents inflected through Ruby's music and she planned to record with Emma once she had completed the composition, after this lust of Emma's dampened enough for her to re-notice the world.

* * *

Regina was daydreaming in her office. Emma had exploded into her life and she coveted her for it. It was easier for Regina, whose closest trilogy of friends lived three hours away at the lake house, to negotiate her neglect of the world. Over the years these three built their own empire as Regina's life increasingly twisted into itself, in spite of their encouragement to expand her emotional repertoire.

It felt as if Emma's and her own disjointedly hybrid half-lives clashed against each other as Regina found her minutely managed life invaded by delight, her meticulous space suddenly inhabited by colour. Regina found herself lusting for experience rather than editing for it.

Regina drifted into remembering the last time she had felt this, the summer affair with Maleficent, over 20 years ago. Maleficent traced the curve of her arm one evening when she could no longer withhold the draw they held on each other. Regina's languid smile curved towards Maleficent, encouraging her to pursue further.

The white static glow of the television was splattering the room with uneven light in Maleficent's apartment. From that night, the pair coiled into an intense spiral of sex and fun. This was so similar, yet also this is something else, bordering on absolute pure delight.

* * *

"Emma," Snow held coffee and a glass of ice.

"I know, alright," Emma reached for the enticement, "Ruby's coming."

"Yes, but she already knows," Snow said, "and Killian is unhinged."

"Snow," Emma whined, "Please..."

Snow slid the glass of ice over the bar, pushing the hot cup of coffee after it. Emma gently poured the hot coffee over ice, moaning deeply as she sipped out of the glass.

"Regina," Snow's hand appeared, tapping at her wrist, impatient.

"She's..." Emma sighed and smiled, "...a neurosurgeon at MARH. She lives in a penthouse with a greenhouse on top in Ellysion."

"This I already know. I want to know why she's worth neglecting your friends for."

Emma flushed with embarrassment, "She's not, no one is, truth be told. I'm at fault for neglecting for them."

"Yes, true, however you didn't answer my question."

"She's...thoughtful and smart and funny," Emma shrugged, "beautiful and delightful."

"Can you construct a cohesive sentence to form an answer?"

"Not really. I don't know what you want me to say. I've been neglecting my family for fabulous sex with a beautiful woman," Emma smiled lopsidedly as she drunk another mouthful, "She holds within her ruinous entitlement, yet still, I feel hope. She tastes of hope. I'm sorry."

"I know it feels giddy..."

"She does. Makes me giddy. I've never been giddy. Ever."

"It's kinda fun to watch," Ruby threw her bag down, laughing.

"Of course you would like to watch..."Emma rolled her eyes, "…because you've never be giddy..."

"Gee, thanks," Ruby snorted, looking to Snow, "Killian?"

"Yes."

"He's being a petulant child," Ruby said, "awfully petulant."

"He said its been a month since he's seen you."

"Doubt it..."Emma's derision apparent, before she stopped and thought. She saw Ruby every shift, Snow every day she worked for coffee. Killian, though, wasn't ever at home when she was, although truthfully, she spent whatever free time she had with Regina. Conceding, she said, "Its Possible."

Snow smiled at the hum surrounding Emma, peeling off her like static, "...unhappy families can become these vast conspiracies of silences out, of habit and convenience. Our family makes music and lyrics to fill the spaces drummed out by our heartbeats and danced beyond ourselves, when we combine we're so much greater. You need to find the words to flight your way out, this will define you for all of us. Speak to Killian, and I expect to meet her Saturday."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Excellent."

* * *

Their apartment would have been a shack if not contained within the confines of a multi-storied structure. The city, primarily accented in tones of blue and grey, even in sunshine, is grimy and full of ancient, limestone, aging brick and constantly crumbling mortar in spite of its vibrancy and life. It is prohibitively expensive and this small, dark space the only place that the then 18 year olds had been able to afford.

However, this place represented too the both of them a space that was exclusively their own, and is inexorably linked to their own independence. Together, the two of them created a retreat from the overwhelming noise of life screaming through every strata in the twenty-four hour city. Over the two and a half years living there, they stayed in spite of being able to find somewhere better.

Emma lay on the mattress, staring aimlessly at the patterns on the filthy ceiling. She finished at 8am and slept towards the afternoon deeply, yet now awake her mind is focused on Regina, wanting to hear her rusty voice, always eliciting a creeping heat within her. It is exquisite, the pain of her absence on sense memory.

Softly, many disparate fractures became part of a puzzle finally fitting together. The sense of warmth dissipated as impending terror flaked across the ceiling. She tried to pull herself back in, but is undone when Killian's face blurred into oblivion for the arch of Regina's face in the dawn. She felt of all things, that Regina's face is the fated ruler beside her. Her destiny with Killian slipped beyond her grasp when she lead them away from Tempenka and what was expected of them.

"Emma!" A hint of sarcastic surprise over warmth as she walked out of her room, "Are you an apparition?"

Emma laughed, genuinely, at the theatrics, "Killian, don't be so dramatic."

"So. That new Tequila Bar, Arantxa…"

"Sorry, Killian, plans."

"Emma," Killian, frustrated, sharply spoke. Inflection means everything in an argument, yet absence means more. Inflection the knife Killian held, absence the gun Emma wielded. Killian wondered why he was left holding the knife in this fight as he said "Really, again. You could at least look….I don't know…less…."

"Terna," she responded, with one word, eliciting calm, peace and silence. It is both acknowledgement and acquiescence. The relationship between the two complicated by their entire intertwined history, complicit within their co-dependent closeness.

"I know Killian, that I've been neglecting you. Please don't say anything hurtful."

Emma remembered, still, the rules of their youth, the ceremonies of moon and sun, to coax the earth to produce nourishment. All of the rituals of obedience twisted into earth bound words of power have jaded her about the potential she could never have back. Her option to return to the community is gone, she is forever forbidden from it for running away. It's no longer her home.

They are in this dark, decrepit city that is perpetually falling and rebuilding around them. Killian is a perpetual memento of what she would rather forget. He is the hybrid between a life fled from and a life hidden within. Killian is becoming, increasingly, a reflection of how aberrant her life is and how insular their circle has bound them to each other.

"I barely see you any more. Or even at all."

"Killian. Its like you think I making a choice," Emma shook her head, "No. Worse than that, you're expecting me to choose you. I'm not choosing either unless it is both."

"You're abandoning me. Again." Killian loved the life he shared with Emma, understood the confines of it's structure. Yet, he also understood how treacherous it is they could not give each other up, too the both of them, each other was the addiction making them fall apart.

"Your only pissed you can't follow me this time," he frustrated her. Long ago, she had given up questioning why he had followed her that night and put up with all of the situations in-between. If she is being honest with herself, he gave her a purpose, a structure, a reason.

They became something else than what they were grown to be, outside of themselves with the connections they made. They built, however unintentionally, lives away from each other. Still, neither escaped the yearning to replace the missing they could not name.

"It may feel that way, but think about it. I would never abandon you," Emma returned to repacking her bag and when she was able, looked up at Killian accepting the guilt of her happiness.

He was always her choice, even if simply by default, that space between choice and love leaves scars inside this shared space. Emma's own failures are reflected in Killian's face, how there legacy is dictating their future by replaying their history.

* * *

"That's all you're going to say?" Killian tried to argue with her, but it was like arguing with the sun, he will always be eclipsed by someone far more brilliant than himself. She is his compass, how he calibrates and orientates himself, and all she did when he stood too close is to burn him to cinder and carbon.

He was threatened by Ruby and Belle, unsure of Charming and Snow and had only segued into tolerance of Ruby's ability to be unforgivably brutal with truth, and Snow's food.

"What more do you want me to say?" Emma scolded him so fiercely, she refused to concede to his petulant demands this time.

"Just think about…." Killian struggled, "...it's not what you say. Its how you act."

Holding up her hands, an admission, "Okay, Killian, okay. Just not tonight. Later in the week?"

"I feel excluded," Killian said, mixing one of the tequila ice cocktails he liked for the both of them before continuing, "Ruby's met her."

Taking the drink, Emma replied, "Just because you don't get out of bed does not make it an exclusion. Ruby met her the same way I did — at work."

"I know," Killian slumped on the broken, lopsided chair, "But I'd still like to meet whose side you're on now."

"There are no sides, only our side. Its not a choice. She's in my heart and in my life, which only means I've more space to love, not less. Of course everyone is on the same side. Can you at least pretend you want to?"

"Ahh, you know how jealous I can be..."

Emma snorted, "Or just busy chasing all of those lithe little boys from work...or the bus...or the street..."

Killian, defeated, dropped his eyes, "Fine" but continued, "Emma. I've not met her. You haven't met Robin. Sriah," in an effort to gain her attention, Killian fell back into their shared language.

"I'm really sorry, Killian. You're, of course, right," Emma paused as she turned to look at Killian, she stepped the distance between them, reaching not only with her arms but yielding her heart and hugged Killian. The softness in the movement stretched time around them until they stepped back, Emma quietly repeated, "You've not met Regina, I've not met Robin."

Killian looked guilty, "I know, I'm sorry."

"How about something during the week. Just us. We could co-ordinate our next two days off together. Also, how about the four of us have dinner together," Emma rested her soul a little in the space between them.

Killian softened, releasing his soul to hers, unable to maintain his anger at Emma. They were never able to, complete reflections of each other, and his jealousy had temporarily shaken him.

"Okay. Just remember all of this in your halo of love," as he leaned in and kissed her simply on the cheek. Emma grabbed her backpack and skipped out of the small apartment.

He watched his childhood leave, his history rebuked, remembering when the only people they knew were people they had always known. He always felt coveted, grown to be the next Sashenka, the leader. Emma always the antithesis of the community, always the questioning one. He knew he could not have stayed without her, could not have existed as their magic was one of blood and birth.

Killian's deepest secret is the pleasure he had on the night of their bonding; he had felt the power of their destiny. That particular night, Emma splintered before him, scattered parts of herself before gathering them all up and running. In his terror of loosing her, he followed and lost his own destiny to hers. A knock at the door interrupted him. As he opened it, he was pushed out the way as Ruby entered the pathetic space.

"She will remain stagnant here. You know this," Ruby's voice is vicious and brutal, "You want to hide, but she is brilliant! She cannot thrive with you. With Regina, she glows with life, and you're an awful person to not let her go."

"That's unfair..."

"No. It's fucking not. It's absolutely fair. I've known you since you refused to speak and expected Emma to do it all. She took the brunt of everything to keep you safe and you, what, destroy what she wants? No." Ruby's fury spun out of control.

"Ruby..."

"I'm not bothering until you have something, anything, other to say. Stop being a child."

"You really are some strangely horrendous type of adult if you think I'm a child," Killian spat.

Ruby laughed, genuinely, "Really? You will loose her. Completely. Due only to yourself, yet Emma will have Belle, Snow, Charming and myself. Even without Regina, she has all of us. And because of the way you're acting, she will no longer want you either."

Ruby turned and left, leaving Killian to himself. Ruby knew Regina allowed Emma to see a way to her own freedom from herself, and is changing the landscape of how hope is constructed. Emma's dalliances in the past were insignificant, a rite of passage over one of reality or necessity. Killian always with a flair for the social, found comfort in public displays, in café and clubs. Emma was eternally on internal pause until Regina.

* * *

They were having an early dinner before Emma's night shift at Pacer. She is still feeling uneasy from her conversation with Killian. How could she explain Killian when she couldn't explain herself. They discussed nothing of their lives, the initial lust engulfing them and eclipsing the quiet inelegance of the past, shifting history for what had yet to evolve into the hoped future together.

Emma watched as their shadows met before they did, intertwined on the pavement, blending together into one shimmering mess. It swayed as Emma lifted her head to greet Regina, and their lips met softly. Regina's breath smelt of cinnamon as it curved the crest of her lips, tasting faintly of salt and lipstick.

"Hi," Emma said, her voice an uneasy lullaby.

"Hello," Regina said, kissing again delicately before continuing along the street. She noticed the unfocused look in Emma's eyes, "Are you OK?"

"CLS is up here," indicating the next street through the purple deepening into an inky sky, increasingly highlighted by globes of dull yellow light, "we can eat there."

"Bad Day?" Regina squeezed Emma's hand, picking up on the deflated intimation stroking the edges of Emma's voice.

"Killian ambushed me with emotional treachery," she shook, fury teetering around her, changing the air flow.

"Again?" Regina said softly as Emma sharply tugged at her hand, jolting her shoulder.

"He is...frustrating. He enjoys the freedom of himself, however he wants me at his beck and call. I'm not responsible for his borrowed trouble," Emma is chaotic and this twirled around her with the bitterness of their fight, lingering in her mouth like poison.

Regina waited for her, for what Emma was willing to say, "he says you're changing me. You are, but I want whatever this..." she gestures between the two of them, "...is, I like whatever this is."

Regina feels the weight of what she is saying, and of all the spaces in-between.

Emma sighs, "He hates that I'm not always...that he can only see me in the disastrous moments he makes out of everything, broken dates and times. Before you, he could ignore the volunteering and the music and stuff because I wasn't distracted by anyone else but him, I guess."

"Okay," Regina sighed, "Is their truth to any of what is he saying?"

"Only the wrong people wanted us," Emma shuffled her features through various incarnations of trouble before settling back down into shades of concealed yet waning fury, "we've been...look, I'm terrified that you are...and he is terrified of the same. He hates loosing me to anyone."

"What are we going to do?" Regina noticed all the spaces in-between what she was saying and what she left out, how she lost the words.

"We?"

"Of course, we," Regina could not be offended, and was working really hard not to think all the while that she terrifies her.

"I was particularly unrelenting this time. Calm me has a temper, unfortunately furious me lets her out."

"Can you be specific?" concern mixed in with reality to filter through Regina's voice.

"It has mostly to do with our past," Emma smiled sadly.

"Sometimes you seem pressured. Disturbed. Haunted. Especially after seeing Killian. Except I know he means a great deal to you."

"We've a long history. Maybe more complicated than long. We've….unique history."

"All families do. We've time."

Emma panicked paused as she hesitated. Her past smashing, again, into her present. Was there time long enough for Regina to listen to her history, having nothing to compare this too, Emma's heart quickened as it thumped into her throat making it difficult to breath. The unreality of the time spent with Regina crashed around her as the gunfire pace her heart was trapping her in.

Regina stopped and pulled Emma out of the constant shuffle of the sidewalk and against a stained brick wall, "What is it?" Emma stared blankly.

"Emma, can you hear my voice?" an imperceptible nod, "Emma, I need you to do as I say," Regina, familiar with panic attacks, said, "Breath in 1...2…3," as she barely felt any chest movement. Regina moved her hand underneath the jacked and shirt, "Make my hand move, Emma, breath in 1…2…3," better, "Breath out 1…2…3."

It took Regina 6 minutes of coaxing to loosen Emma from the wall and into her arms. Several more minutes passed with Emma in her arms before Emma pulled back and led Regina back into the crowd. The fear of everything and nothing overwhelming, of loss and change to numerous to know, yet Emma knew she could never hide.

They moved inside the bar and into a booth and ordered before Regina asked, "Why can't you tell me?"

"It's complicated, the two of us."

"Emma. That was quite a panic attack."

"Killian and I've been together our entire lives. We didn't know our parents, we were lost children who only had each other. The foster system was cruel, it separated us when we needed each other the most. Killian feels I'm abandoning him all over again, feels I'm fleeing again as I fled from our past, thinks your wealth can hide me..." Regina frowned at this, but Emma reached out and took her hand, "I was placed with a wealthy woman, Ingrid. He...is hurt and confused."

"Killian was placed, in line with his psychological assessment recommendations, with a family. Killian's foster father was a homicide detective with the RCPD, known as the 'bingo preacher' and his wife, Grey Moran is a community liaison with the Rainbeaux Homeless Youth Charity. They'd two daughters, one a year younger than Killian, the other three. He folded within himself, at a loss without my voice to speak for him," Emma looked at the table, and poured another CLS, "I'll tell you Regina, I want to tell you, but I've work in an hour, and this is just the sharp point in a complicated and messy past and I'm unsure just how to tell you. Yet. I promise I will."

"There isn't a short version?"

"Not one shorter than what I told you, or will not raise more questions. Killian and I were raised within an enclosed community, Tempenka. Think one of those survivalist types, but peaceful. We were raised to become the leaders. We ran away and came here where it's easy to hide. We were homeless before spending 3 years in foster care. And I can see the curiosity in your face, you have questions and I'm not ready to answer them all yet."

"Okay. Is that why you panicked? And that night you came for dinner?"

Emma swallowed a mouthful before looking at Regina, "Yes. I like you. I guess I was not expecting to..." Emma flushed, "...Well, that much."

"Okay. But...you want to be here? With me?"

"Yes." Emma moved, slipping to sit right next to Regina, and lifted her eyes to look at her directly, "Yes, I do."

"I can wait. You haven't nearly told me enough information, but I'm willing to stick around to hear it," Regina smiled, "You're someone that...I would like to explore more."

Ruby came and joined them at the table, sliding in to notice the dark mood over the two, "Hi ladies, Killian?"

"Yes," Emma said, shifting her drink out of her hand, "Isn't it always?"

"Yes. I talked to him."

"Why?"

"Because he may decide not to be such an ass. I mean, really, he such a child."

"Yes, well, we didn't raise him well."

"We were not meant to, we're too defective."

Regina swept her head between the swift, broken accent and the broken face, waiting. They both had silent worlds shared inside of each other, between the shadows of their souls, sliced in similar ways together. She knows that she will endure any of their history for the love of Emma.


	4. Connections

IV CONNECTIONS

"So where exactly are we going?"

"Granny's Smash Repair's," Emma said, "it's a café in Mechanic's Ally."

"You're smiling mysteriously," Regina said, a smile dancing devilishly at the corners of her own lips, "Why?"

"Am not," Emma chuckled, quickly stealing a kiss form Regina, a well practised and proved diversion technique.

"Emma, can I please get anything from you? Anything at all?"

"Granny's is one of those places that collects all manner of people. It is open 24 hours a day and anyone can find a space to be accepted. Snow fed us in our early days while we were homeless. She gave us very sage advice in the ways of this city. Ruby and I volunteer for her charity."

Regina realised how enraptured with this woman she was, how obscenely fabulous and obsessive this lust felt. Emma gifted small pieces of history, entrancing her, as she replied, "This place means a lot then. Snow? Charming's partner? Does Killian volunteer as well?"

"Yes, that Snow. It is simply a building, beaten and old like this city. Snow stopped us from starving and gave us a place to be safe. Snow and Charming are...important. Killian volunteers for Rainbeaux Homeless Youth Charity. They run a couple of shelters and an annual event, Esther Ball."

"I've heard of Esther Ball. Does he volunteer for them because his foster mother is a community liaison for RYC? Are you sure this is the right place for me to meet everyone? It sounds like home ground for Killian and you..." Regina jumped in with questions while Emma was answering.

"He liked volunteering for them," Emma said simply before catching the smile covering Regina's face, "Oh, stop it. You're being wilfully obnoxious."

"Maybe," Regina laughing as Emma twisted confidently through alleyways where light is filtered and opaque, "Where is this place?"

"Exactly where it is."

"Emma..."

"It is..." Emma smiled, "...and I'm leading you to it..."

"There are so many places I don't know."

"Only by experience...and choice," Emma said turning the last corner and half way up the lane towards the glow highlighting the pavement. Walking in, Emma scanned the booths and tables until she saw the intimately familiar face sitting in a booth.

"Come on, he's over here," Emma laced their fingers together to walked through the crowd of people either coming or going to work. Just as they came weaving through the tables, a spike haired round faced boy wondered up wiping his still damp hands on his skinny leg jeans. Killian stood up to smile at Emma.

"Kthia," Killian said, hugging Emma and turned to the others, as Killian pointed to both of them, saying, "Emma, Robin, Robin, Emma."

"Hi," Robin fluttered his fingers, indicating they were still damp.

"Hi, and this is Regina," Emma shifted to include Regina in the group and while the moment lulled, slipped into the booth.

The three followed. Regina looked over the menu while Emma and Killian chatted in a shorthand lost on both herself and Robin. Their voices were light in a language only the pair understood, bouncing inside their space along side the green oddity of their eyes. Killian's flint green mingled with Emma's dragon flame green, two halves stitching themselves together.

"The Falling Bubble is good," Robin said to Regina.

"Really? How is the Shallow River?"

"Depends on whether you like your soup thin or chunky. Too thin for me."

"What about Bundle of Hail?"

"Oh, now that is perfect."

"Okay, I'm going to order," Emma broke in, "you know what you want?"

"What would you recommend?" Regina asked

"Table starter is Base Jumper. I think you'll like Oak Flame."

"Okay," Regina shifted out of the booth so Emma could go over to the counter and as she slid back in asked, "What are you two having?"

"I'm having Trillion Acres," Killian smiled

"Bundle of Hail."

Regina nodded, "Emma said you both work at Malaree's? I don't think I've heard of it."

"Yes. It's under Raptor Bridge, overlooking Raptor Rage," Killian laughed before explaining, "It's a male review, a stripper palace with dirty old men and us hot dancers."

Regina joined in the laughter, "I guess it's not a place I would go. Raptor Rage?"

"In the water under the bridge are a whole mess of cars, I think even a rail carriage, and it's created this weird kind of tidal rapids. Cheap thrills."

"Cars?"

"Yes. Even worse are why the cars are dumped. Some stolen to be driven into the river, sometimes for insurance or cops hiding corruption and criminals hiding the truth. Legacy suicides," Killian shrugged, "now there are hundreds of vehicles layering the river bed. The city can't pull them out fast enough."

Emma returned to a table full of laughing, macabre faces and sat back down next to Regina, "What's so funny?"

Once they calmed down enough, Killian said "Rapids," before asking, "when are we going to check out Arantxa?"

"Arantxa?" Regina repeated, before looking at Emma, "Is this another one of your places?"

"My places?" Emma gasped, feigning offence, "What ever do you mean?"

Killian snorted some of his drink out of his nose, "Where on earth have you taken her?"

Emma waved off the comment as she stared at Regina, still feigning insult, "Actually, Arantxa is a just opened tequila bar. Killian asked us to go."

"Oh...well..." Regina began as the table collapsed in laughter.

The conversation between the four over the course of the meal swayed with the soul of Granny's, the knitted texture of tentatively becoming friends swayed deeper into the night until Killian and Robin stood.

"It's lovely to finally meet you," Killian leaning in, kissing Regina on the cheek.

"And You," as the couples separated and Emma led her to a long table set on the other side of the room which had been gradually filing over the course of their mean and now was crowded.

"This is a meet and greet for Smash Punch Woman," Emma said as they sat down next to Ruby. Henry waved from across the table. She had been on every shift of theirs since she started, becoming a shadow of Emma and Ruby's.

Emma turned to Ruby, "Do you think she's one of them?"

"No. Beast would've done a security check."

"I know. Still. She is practically stalking us. Why?"

"Don't know. Don't care."

"Hi. Everyone. Calm down." Snow called out. The table calmed down enough for Snow to continue, "I'm delighted to see we've a lot of new faces. You'll catch up. This meeting is for newer members and for potential ideas for SPW annual gala. As usual, we're looking for extra hands in the kitchen, at the hostels and for the gala."

A jumble of noises commenced, as everyone when to speak at once. Snow held up her hands, "STOP. I realise there are new faces here, but let us continue. Ruby, can you give an example?"

"For the theme, I have Queens and Corsets. Witching Hour have offered catering services."

"Okay. Thank You. Belle will be donating the usual entertainment packages for the silent auction. If anyone has any other contacts, please utilise them."

"Possibly," Regina looked up the table to Snow, "Westwood Manor Garden Atelier and Couture Preserves will donate."

"Okay. Thank you. Emma, as you are this years CDL, please take the details," Snow made a note, "Anything further? Okay, next week I want consensus. Teams will be emailed. Ask Questions. If you haven't already, write your details here," Snow finished, indicating the food covered table, "Enjoy."

The table drifted into the temporary chaos of movement, as Henry quickly appeared next to Emma, who indicated for Regina to wait. Emma took Henry over to where Snow was standing, "Snow, this is Henry. I told you about her."

"Hi. Thanks Emma."

"Hi," Henry smiled at Snow, "Thanks Emma."

Emma turned quickly to retreat and searched faces until she found Regina, leaning against the bar, propped up on a stool. As Emma walked up, Regina said, "That was a surprise."

"Not what you were expecting?"

"I'm not sure. At least at this time," Regina pulled Emma in-between her legs, wrapping her arms around her waist.

"This is primarily a mixer for new volunteers. Most regular volunteers are shift workers, as most future volunteers are. There's no such thing as normal times," Emma rested her hip against Regina's inner thigh, enjoying the comfort of being within her arms.

"Makes sense. I don't have regular hours. I should put my name down."

"You? Volunteering here? With all that time you've lying about the place?"

"But..."

"You're already a member on all of those boards..."

"However..."

"Regina. I'm keeping you all to myself," Emma leaned in for a kiss, "You're far too valuable to me now I'm this year's corporate donation liaison. Which means you could be a very viable contact to develop my portfolio."

Snow finally freed herself from the throng of people, and walked over to Emma and Regina.

"Regina, this is Snow."

"Nice to meet you, finally," Snow reached out as Regina released her arm from Emma's waist and offered her hand, before snaking her arm back around Emma.

"Emma," Ruby came up, a wild look in her eye and tugged at her arm, "come..."

Emma withdrew from Regina, kissing her briefly, "be back in a sec..." as she disappeared into the crowd. Regina watched her momentarily as she laughed with Ruby at something she said. Even from across the room, her laughter resonated beautifully, sharp yet gentle.

"Why does she think Henry is 'one of them'?" Regina asked Snow.

"Hmmm?"

"Emma is very concerned about her behaviour. Ruby less so."

"She shouldn't be. Henry is second generation, raised with it's own complications, between the culture of her grandparents and the expectations of this world. Henry's father, Akio weighed under generations of second born sons, joined the family in banking. His older brother, Daichi, took over the families primary business in industrial chemicals. Her mother, Nan is a civil rights attorney. Her every movement had been accounted for, designated and approved. She was never a child, only an experiment to be moulded and grown, a Petri dish."

"You seem to understand a lot about her."

"Yes, Ruby remembers her. Emma does not," Snow looked to the group, "I've known Henry for a while."

"Known her like Emma?" Regina observed Snow closely, attempting to gain information out of any of them was frustrating.

"No. Very unlike Emma," Snow quietened, contemplative.

"Emma said you used to feed Killian and her," Regina asked, changing tactics, Emma always a soft, warm topic.

"Yes. They were disconcerting, direct, polite, always looked me in the eye. Emma always spoke for both of them, weaving her dragon green eyes around me," Snow laughed gently, recalling Emma lacing tendrils of connection between them from the very beginning, "For 12 months, these two turned up and volunteered, distinguishing themselves by the subtle deportment of attitude, observing the flow of this community, hidden in the dark corners of the city. They were our insiders. I told my wife, Charming, about them, Emma stole my heart pretty quickly."

Snow loved the changes within Emma, how distinct they were from her development over the past six years, remembering the two tall, thin children speaking in accented, broken voices, hesitant and frustrated, noticeable in the crowd of itinerants coming to Granny's for food.

Regina heard the hesitation flirting around Snow's tone and stated, "This place is beautiful."

"I converted Granny's from the my mother's smash repairs. I left the oil stains embedded with the original cement floors. I'm sure some of them are from my own awkward clumsiness as a child. It is finished as it is, stylised to my taste. Those are bespoke, handmade rough oak bench seats and I vanished those oak tables until they were glossy myself. We are purposefully hidden within the creases of the city, enfolded within its layers," Snow smile sighed, looking towards the kitchen, silver and dull metal gleaming under fluorescents hanging from cords twisted to the roof, replacing tools and broken cars.

Regina saw Snow lost within her memory, "Thank you."

"Why?"

"For loving her."

"I am sure you are discovering that I couldn't not," Snow said, shuddering before continuing, "I noticed when the twins disappeared, taken by family services and when they returned, better dressed yet steel streaked within them. They were fostered separately and came here to reconnect. When they disappeared only to return for the third time, they came with Ruby, blind in one eye and as haphazardly flawed within her soul, an open wound to the world. I introduced Ruby and Emma to my niece, Belle before her mother died. The three formed a circle, a hybrid of catastrophe more complete together. These are my daughters, my family."

"Same for Charming?"

"When Charm lost her twin sister, Belle mother, she felt her heart torn to blackness, remnants of half of her soul ripped beyond the light. There was nothing. Days nor time distinguished themselves, light and dark the same. Charming had four people who loved her enough not to go away. Belle, along with that stick-waif of a girl with a lilted accent and that heavily scared, half-blind child and myself. Those two became Belle connection to a life she needed to be able to see. They are solid and graspable, those three coiled inside Belle's room together, providing the warmth and comfort of connection. They gave us hope, drawing us out of darkness. So, I couldn't not..."

Emma bound back up and snuggled into Regina before she could respond, "Couldn't not what?"

"Hello," Charming smiled walking up, leaned in and placed a delicate, protective kiss above Emma's brow before retreating from their space and turning to Regina, said "Westwood Manor donations?"

"Charming!" Emma giggled, "this is Regina, Regina, Charming."

"Hi," Regina smiled back, remembering a connection somewhere she couldn't quite place, "What's wrong with Westwood Manor?"

"Nothing at all," Charming smiled, her bemused expression predatory as she, scrambled to place where she knew Regina from, "fancy connections, Emma..."

"It is for charity after all..." Regina smiled at the infamous CEO of Pacer Enterprises, "...Cruella said she's a new range ready to come out. I could probably swing an advance tester range for this silent auction."

"Now, how can you do that?" Snow asked, intrigued by the gentle power exuded by Emma's new love.

"They're my friends."

"Fabulous...Can it be ready by..."

Charming cut in, finally making the connection to Regina, "You're on the Opera Committee?"

"I'm a legacy," Regina said, gathering herself at the abrupt question.

"Opera?" Emma asked, confused with the rapid change in conversation. Her mind went directly to her former foster mother, Ingrid, with whom she shared a complicated relationship. Ingrid always wanted to take Emma to the opera while she was under her care, except Emma remained reticent.

"The biggest charity event in the city?" Snow said.

"I know," Regina said.

"Legacy membership? Charity event?" Emma frowned.

"Yes. I may have failed to mention we're going to a gala," Regina laughed softly.

Emma flushed and smiled as she leaned in, kissing Regina, following the laughter bubbling from her lips, "It sounds amazing. When?"

"Two weeks."

"You allowed my membership to pass..." Charming smiled, more as than anything else she could see Emma is herself, uniquely so. Charming never before seen her in the fresh wash of love. Emma always behaved as if her destruction was inevitable, an icon of her own despair. This, though, this was boarding on obscenely peaceful, wanton, brazen, relaxed, "...thank you. We will be attending."

"Snow..." a voice called from across the room before their conversation could continue, "Charm..."

"Excuse us," Snow nodded at both of them while she reached without looking to take Charming' hand and lead them both in the direction of the voice.

"I'm going to get the inquisition from those two later," Emma turned back to Regina, "ready to go?"

"Hmmm. Really," Regina said as she tucked Emma's arm in the crook of her elbow, and walked out to Mechanic's alley. She had so many questions, seeing how close Emma obviously is with both women, yet started with the first one falling from her mouth, "was that Tranqi that you were speaking with Killian?"

"Yup"

"Do you miss it?"

"Miss what?"

"Speaking it."

"I do speak it."

"I mean all the time."

Emma looked to the sky, contemplative, "You see those stars?"

"Yes. No. Kind of," the lights of the city obscuring the soft focus of the stars. She knew what she is meant to see.

"They look different here, more filtered and distant. Not attainable. At Tempenka they look crystalline in beauty, like hope. We knew all their names, were taught the reality and mysticism of the sky. All we had was each other. Out here, we have the world. Speaking only Tranqi is not worth exchanging the world for."

"I think I understand."

"You cannot trade life or barter with time. You have to gamble, throw the dice."

"They both love you," Regina lifted Emma's hand to her mouth and kissed it, wanting to know about Charming and Snow, "they're very protective of you."

"Yes. I love them, too," Emma relaxed with the gentle gesture, "they both mean a lot."

"Okay," Regina sighed. Emma could introduce her but not elaborate on what they mean to her.

"What else do you want me to say?" Emma shrugged, "Your friends are protective of you?"

"Yes. We grew up together in boarding school."

Emma finally understood what Regina was reaching for, "You're asking why they're so protective?"

"Yes."

"Same reason, mostly, we grew up together. They're..." Emma opened her hands, "...Killian and I have been here since we were 14. I told you how we met Snow, because she feed us when we'd nothing, cared about us and met Charm and Belle through her. We met Ruby in a group home, and Belle hired us to work at Pacer, but the three of us really close now. Charm and Snow are her Aunts and, really, are to Ruby and me as well."

"Belle, Charming, Snow, Ruby." Regina repeated the names, cementing the connections, "More complicated history?"

"Less so then Killian and I," Emma sighed.

"Less?" Regina attempting to coax more revealing answers.

"Hmm. Belle, Ruby and I became friends. Charming and Snow have been together for as long as Belle can remember, kind of a circle of coincidence in connections," Emma half shrugged as she squeezed Regina's hand slightly, "Killian and I've never not known each other."

Regina smiled, "You are enchanting."

"I'm as much as you are," shrugged Emma.

"When someone gives you a compliment, you could at least be gracious enough to accept it."

"Thank you," Emma quietly whispered as they wound their way through the alleys to Regina's apartment and the subtle comfort of each other.

* * *

It is still very new, the quiet of Regina's disconcerting. Emma woke early in the unfamiliarity and wandered to the kitchen, thirsty. Emma padded softly through the apartment, full of ghostly pink light from the sun cresting the earth's curve, however had not yet warmed anything. She shivered slightly, wishing she had found Regina's dressing gown, or her own shirt at least.

What she wanted was coffee, but the machine one she was unfamiliar with. She tugged gently at the fridge door and the light clicked on. As her eyes adjusted to the harsh light she saw her favourite chilled honey coffee, Bumblebee Love, a special blend only Snow made, only available from Granny's. Emma felt warmed Regina intentionally made the effort to please her. She extracted the bottle.

The kitchen still confused her, large and full of many unnecessary excesses of wealth, so she took the bottle to the windows to watch the pink sky turn to peach, then aquaish and drank, tasting the thick, sweet liquid over the cold glass rim.

She was thinking of Regina's questions about Belle, Charming and Snow. She had been 15 when she met Belle at Granny's while Ruby and herself were helping Snow with the food service to the homeless. Belle was born blind and lucky her father, a medical technician and her aunt, a robotic engineer, built her eyes with which to see. By six, she was upgrading the software herself. By eight, she created the foundation of the program that would become Beast and integrally linked her eyes into this programming.

Belle was intrigued by the scars dominating Ruby's face and the empty eye dreaming beyond sight. She had wanted to replace Ruby's eye with one she could make, wanted a test subject beyond herself. The sky burnt into sienna as she heard a muted shuffle behind her. She turned to see Regina walking towards her, dropping her hands from rubbing her eyes.

As Regina looked up, she saw Emma glowing incandescent in the shimmering rising light, opaque under the transforming sky, hair dishevelled. She wore nothing else as she looked out the window, breathtakingly, achingly beautiful.

Emma paused at the look Regina was giving her, one of abject wonder before she said, "Morning."

"Morning," Regina reached out her hand, "Come back to bed."

"Okay," Emma put the glass on the table, taking Regina's hand, "Thank you for the honey coffee. Why'd you wake up?"

"The beds suspiciously empty," she smiled sleepily, "Snow said it was your favourite...the silence bothering you?"

"A little," Emma answered honestly, but not completely, "And it is."

"You look..." Regina searched Emma's face, "...disconcerted."

"Just thinking," Emma mumbled feeling Regina wrapping her arms around, drawing her in.

"Hmmmm," Regina's voice quiet, muffled by her face being buried in Emma's hair, "about what?"

"Belle. I was thinking of the questions you were asking."

"Okay..." Regina encouraged quietly, hyper aware now of Emma's unfiltered truth.

"Belle is...I barely met her mother before she died. Belle worshipped both her mother, Colette and Aunt Charming. They're so different from each other. Colette ran an early version of Pacer, when it was this speciality store hidden in a basement of the Noxon District, as an extension of her living room. She ran the record store like her life, with love and compassion. As she wilfully ignored the music industry and the rapidly changing customer base moving beyond what she provided. Charming was studious and definitive, as direct and structured as Colette was free, Charming encouraged Belle to create what Colette would not: computerised systems and online presence. Belle and Charming wove an online empire around Colette," the story tumbled from Emma, telling another's story easier than telling her own.

She felt Regina's warm breath tickling her hair as her palm rubbed circular patterns over her back, "Colette gave Belle inspiration, purpose, Charming gave her direction, control and consequence. Colette taught her the drums and the guitar, Belle how to read and negotiate contracts."

"Charming, Belle, Colette..." Regina repeated the names languidly to show she was listening.

"Belle wanted to replace Ruby's broken eye. She refused, keeping her scars to reflect the contamination of her soul, telling Belle she couldn't bare seeing a world with what she lost. Music connected us, Belle hired us, sisters three ever since. When Belle lost Colette, Ruby, raised in the ashes of lost parents, and I, raised with to many abstracted ideals, took her from the dark trance she fell into. The three of us found each other when all others passed us off. We all stood inside this darkness but refused to relinquish her too it. I was fifteen, Ruby was sixteen and we stood where others would not and supported Belle through the building of the apartment in the Pacer basement, shuffling Beast's mainframe to accommodate them both. We did not leave her side, especially when she could not leave the basement," Emma shuddered, at the memory of Belle and Charming both falling apart and rebuilding their lives.

"Snow looked into fostering Ruby, Killian and I after she heard we'd been taken in, but she was rapidly turned down. Charming was told unequivocally we'd already been placed with appropriate families," Emma's voice brittle as she hardened slightly at this unexpected revelation.

It abruptly made her feel uncomfortable Regina so ruthlessly pursued her, demanded her attention. She didn't know how to feel worthy of the look she was receiving. There is so much mistrust burning within for Emma to trust herself, and Regina made her feel unhinged in unfamiliar emotions; safe and beautiful. She pulled back to look at the woman whose arms she is in. All she saw was compassion and calm.

Regina squeezed her hand, "Come back to bed."

"Okay," no longer able to handle her own inside silences.

These shared moments joined them together, irrevocably intertwined. Emma luxuriated in Regina's touch, elated with the fresh wash of unfathomable beauty.

* * *

Regina planned this intimate night since she starting pursuing Emma. The opera gala the perfect event to structure a date around. Regina discovered an intriguing combination of a salsa themed harbour cruise under recommendation of a work colleague, with the late night time fitting perfectly against the end of the opera. Regina felt their love unravelling, savouring the experience.

Their intimacy both immediate and gradual, enveloped them more slowly than their love, which is both loud and immediate, demanding and precious, their physicality hauntingly tender. They were still growing into the desirable pleasure they wanted, foundling roots in the sunshine.

The past few days had been interesting for Regina. She informed her mother, who not reacted as well as assumed she would, unable to understand how Regina could date someone so much younger. Her mother lost her perfect life partner and could not understand Regina's sudden middle life attachment to youth. Regina felt discontented pressure, of loss and a life mostly lived when too young to understand that pleasure was swimming just beneath her surface.

Her mother highlighted this age difference pointlessly. Regina never bothered thinking of this, and was not going to start now, how she felt for Emma eliminating everything else. Regina was connecting the subtle hints Emma offered about her history in a community and her homelessness, this both explaining her strangeness and otherness as well as her seductive charming allure. Regina left all of this unsaid to her mother.

* * *

The five years for Emma since leaving Tempenka may have been long enough to start healing, yet she could never forget, that it was no longer the world she inhabited. This one, for all of its dirt and filth, is the one of her future life. Love did not change her resolve, however it softened her sharp edged hardness. This time she spent with Regina adjusted her understanding of herself, of advocating for beauty even within the ugly.

Her worlds were merging after dinner with Regina, Killian and Robin, and tonight they were meeting with Snow and Charming. Emma understood her history left her open, exposed Regina to danger. However, this Thursday night, her mind is on her dress and on Regina, the unrelenting liquidity of her eyes, and on their date, tonight, opera and salsa.

Regina, wearing a storm blue strapless dress to highlight her dusk hued skin, silently willed the date would at be a reflection of the relationship so far. Emma initially laughed at Regina for her insistence they have a "date" after all they had been doing together. Regina countered that it was time to debut as a couple. Emma, in retaliation, insisted on returning to her apartment so she could be picked up.

Charming gifted her a deep aubergine dress, all at once clingy and flowing to the floor, and she twitched, waiting anxiously for Regina and the car service. As the car sidled up to the curb, Emma's phone beeped. She exited her apartment, her shoes echoing against the stairs on the way down, nodded at the driver as she swung past him into the leather interior.

"You look exquisite," breathed Regina.

Emma smiled, nerves tickling slightly over her racing heart. Emma spoke softly, overwhelmed momentarily as she swallowed shallowly, looking at Regina as if she was destined to be her undoing, "Thank you. You're quite stunning yourself."

The car quietly hummed through traffic. Regina took Emma's hand as she leaned in tempting a kiss. Silence enveloped them comfortably until the car sleeked up to the theatre. Emma, although musically and theatrically trained, had never came to see a performance.

The busy social conventions, conversations and greetings swept them both in with the opera community, a mixture of lifetime members and season ticket holders alike with the charity ticket holders, glasses of champagne clinked together. Regina introduced Emma with unconcealed delight to operatic friends and family until the bell sounded accompanied by lights flicked with impatience and the audience drifted towards their seating.

They, to Emma's relief, did not encounter Ingrid. When Emma mentioned Ingrid at CLS after the panic attack, Regina has been slightly surprised. Regina's relationship with Ingrid was strictly professional and her fostering had never mentioned between them yet this revelation seemed odd, and out of place.

They sat on the charity board for the opera, consulted with each other for years on paediatric neuromedicine and were socially graceful enough to seek each other out at functions. This schism in her life with Emma was nowhere in her life. It worried her until she saw Emma's face, as the opera unfolded before them.

Emma became quite intoxicated with the Opera, the varying hues of the voices, the particular strains of the music, twisting emotions vibrating intensely through her soul. At intermission, Emma moved slow, interlacing her fingers against Regina's to ground herself, to reorientate herself back to this plain. A glass was gently placed in her free hand as a voice whispered in her ear, "We haven't seen her."

"Neither have I," Emma blinked at Charming, leaning into the middle where there is no space between Charming, Snow and herself, the three of them touching foreheads momentarily in an arm less hug before drawing back.

"Charming, Snow," Regina said in greeting, bewildered slightly at the at the intimate greeting until Emma stepped back into her body encouraging an embrace. Regina disengaged her hand to slip her arm around Emma's waist.

"Hi, Regina," Snow answered while Charming smiled.

"Charming, where are you both?" Emma asked, centring herself along Regina's body.

"Balcony, where the reds are," Charming shrugged, "we can see you. Nice box."

"Charming," Emma sighed as Snow elbowed her gently in warning.

"Yes," Charming looked innocent, before she conceded, "You both look beautiful,"

"Thank you," Emma smiled, finishing her drink.

"What are you doing after?" Snow asked.

"Witching Hour is hosting a Salsa-T harbour cruise," Regina replied, "It's just after this."

"Disappointing for us, lucky for you. We're going to Eloise. Karaleigh's has a private function."

"Have you been to Karaleigh's?" Regina asked.

"Not yet. I know the Chef," Snow said, "We were apprenticed together."

"You trained at Eloise?" surprise filtered into Regina's voice, more at Emma's genuine show of indifference at the comment.

"A long time ago, yes," Snow waved it off, "a lifetime ago. How did you know she was apprenticed there? She said new mixes from Westwood Manor are in next week. How about you join us for dinner?"

"That would be lovely," Regina smiled, shrugging, "I can never keep up with release dates. The trilogy have been friends with her for years. Cruella told me Zola was opening Karaleigh's."

"How do you know the Westwood Manor Ladies?"

"I own Westwood Manor. They own the company," Regina murmured as the lights dimmed in summons of the crowd.

"Bye," Snow slid back into Charming, fluidly turning away together, as she took the information Regina provided with interest.

"Later," Emma wriggled her fingers at them, following Regina to her private box.

* * *

After the show finished, Regina waited moments for Emma's breathing and heartbeat to spin back to a more regulated rhythm, before strolling with her, still in silence, hands intertwined, out of the theatre and into the waiting car. Silence wrapped around them until Emma turned and kissed Regina with such passion it rendered her immobile. With her soul dancing, Emma relaxed back into the chair, thinking how many perfect dates could they have?

The car, swift in the dark traffic, swung them down to the Pier, where a brightly lit boat swayed gently against its moorings, the crowd walking on board. Regina, with Emma entwined next to her, led them over the wooden and cement boards, and onto the outdoor deck. They were followed by other shuffling feet, couples giggling, twisting within their own circles. Salsa music played loudly from the six piece band. A quiet moment unshuffled the boat as the engines revved, pushing away from the dock.

Regina looked around as the boat moved over the dark violet water and noticed how all the darkness looked alive, hidden as it liked by shades of light and in this dark a strangely swift kiss drew her back. How did she dare feel this, how could she dare disturb the universe with this love Emma invoked within her. Emma smiled, shone bright as a torchlight as if for Regina herself, her beacon in the darkness as she playfully led them to the dance floor.

Sweaty and exhausted, yet still swinging from the salsa, the car service deposited them outside of Regina's apartment. Standing for a moment, wistful, in the two am moon still issuing a silver glimmer behind a half cut cloud, before walking past the doorman and into the elevator, warmth twinkling against emotion.

Entering past the heavy oak doors, Emma pushed Regina against them, softly brushing her lips against Regina's pulse point, beating rapidly against the thin skin of her neck. Regina moaned desperately, quickly changing their positions, pulling at the zipper running along Emma's left ribcage, tugging the dress until it pooled at her feet. Regina's mouth covered the lace over Emma's nipple, straining against the fabric and pulling it into her. Emma arched off the door while Regina's lips burned down her body with opened mouthed kisses running over the lace panties she wore.

Clawing them off, Regina braced herself against the heady, intoxicating scent of Emma, writhing above her. Regina buried her nose within her, eliciting a gasp and full body roll over her face. Regina held tighter and lapped at her fettered moisture, sucking harshly, swaying with the motion of Emma's rapidly unspooling body, twitching over the top of her. Emma unfurled over Regina as her orgasm shattered through her body, causing her to jerk back, smashing her head straight back into the door as she flooded Regina's face.

"Emma..." Regina, still on her knees over a pile of Emma's discarded clothing, braced the pale, naked body as she slid down the oak, boneless, into her lap, as she leaned forward to kiss the back of her head, "your head okay?"

"Oww. Kind of dampened the pleasure..." Emma snorted, her eyes hooded and swimming, "...just barely inside the door and you've me naked."

"Yes. Well. You do things to me..." smirking, holding Emma lightly.

"Mmmmm. You still seem to be very dressed at the moment..." Emma's voice darkened.

"What are you gonna do?" Regina shrugged, sultriness murmuring within her voice.

"This..." Emma crackled with energy, hearing the silk in Regina's voice, how it fetishized spoken word, cascading out of her mouth and flowed over Emma's body, creating flushes of heat to tumble through her body, ticking up tension as she drew herself up to pursue Regina.

* * *

Regina sat in the curved booth, watching Emma slowly turn her glass around on the table. The afternoon is late and comfortable silence settled over them. Regina yearned for Emma to look at her, desired the glaze of her fingers over the curve of her spine.

Emma fascinated her, her reticence to display anything yet her willingness to expose herself through her body, how her body threw music out of itself, her freedom with Ruby. Emma shifted as she flicked her eyes up, dragon green flaming tearing through Regina, shivering as her spine tingled, "I've an idea."

"Okay..." Emma maintained eye contact, "Which would be?"

"Would you come away with me for a weekend?"

"To where?"

"My cottage in Lake St. Clair."

Falling into silence, Regina waited. Emma's face flushed as she thought about what Regina asked and more importantly, what she offered.

"The lakes district?"

"That'd be it. Westwood Manor, outside of village called Miller's Inn. There is no reason not to."

"This is where your friends live?"

"Yes."

"They run that company at you manor?" Emma's anxiety fluttered.

"Yes, and its our home. They used to live here, but," Regina shrugged, "preferred village life."

"And…" Emma felt her chest constrict.

"And what?" Regina still observing Emma closely, reached across to still her hands, pulling both of them into her own.

"Tell me about them? You all share a house?"

"I don't remember life without them improving it. We met in boarding school, I was the youngest by many years. The four of us were the ones who stood out and melted into obscurity together. Mulan was a scholarship kid. Maleficent old money, but her father was disgraced. Cruella's family new money and earned from the obscure and unattractive," Regina's voice is slow and regular, quelling Emma's anxiety, dulling her fear.

Her voice a lullaby, she continued, "Mulan travelled with me for six month after we graduated uni. Maleficent and I had a summer fling just after we came back that dissolved into friendship not long after, as Cruella is an architect, and had taken an internship out in Lake St. Clair and we travelled out to see her. While out there, we were all talking about what we really wanted in life and how it conflicted with expectations of us, and Cruella found this cottage, empty and forlorn, a deceased estate on the outskirts of this tiny village."

Regina's voice dropped as her fingers caressed Emma's, smiling, "Cruella stayed and did most of the repair work before she moved in. Maleficent moved out a few years later, Mulan a few after that. They pursued their dream….Maleficent is the Master Horticulturist, Cruella is the Master Preserver and Mulan does all of the marketing and sales for the Garden Atelier company. I go out when I can," information fell from Regina, but she felt it still wasn't enough to describe the relationship and history between the four.

"So you all live out there? Westwood's stuffs a bit swanky for us to afford, but we've seen it," Emma smiled, remembering the treats from Regina the week they met shared with Ruby and Killian, the shaking of her hands subsiding, "and been gifted some. How are we going to get out there?"

"I do have a car, you know. The car service is easier and less dangerous in the city when I have worked a 48 hour shift."

"I'll think about it."

* * *

"Emma," a voice broke over her headset.

"Go ahead Beast."

"Please attend the Hive."

Emma walked into the dedicated elevator, swiping her card over the access point to press the lowest level, through the outer receptacle to the coded door at the back and into to the apartment. Belle is a haven of silence and power, the static hum of electricity, causing the rustle of fine hair swift against her body.

With Belle completely robotic eyes, she could project information from her eyes to the wall. Charming taught her though to show discretion around non-family members. The vague, unfocused look Belle got while she communicated with Beast led to an expressionless face disconcerting to anyone unfamiliar with their situation.

"Belle?"

"Kitchen," Belle called back, standing at the centre column, dominating the apartment with pulsating blue light, connecting the ceiling to the floor.

Belle's eyes automatically took information from the data stream. She upgraded her spatial abilities by adding micro speakers into her ears and had integrated her eyes to contain network access. Her eyes could wirelessly record everything to hard-drive.

Beast's voice always a constant presence that Belle programmed as a balance between Mahalia Jackson and Greta Garbo. She had only the single owl tattoo, exposed on her neck, for already her body modifications were infinitely more intrusive and subversive. Emma walked out into the open space to find. Coffee steaming on the counter.

"Thanks," Emma sat on the stool, "Who's the other cup for?"

"Ruby. Once she finishes what she is doing. Tell me about Regina," Belle smiled, as she left the column and joined her at the counter, "And does her name fit?"

Their bond one forged after Belle mothers death, where she found herself drifting delirious for months in fog which, once faded, she found Emma and Ruby, patient and waiting. Belle could not have thanked them enough, seeing all the subtle things they had done.

Emma shrugged and brushed off the thanks, her voice always voice soft and centered, pitched even across her words, Ruby steady and balanced. Belle remembered Beast had told her Emma's name meant moon, and for lack of anything else to say, in the half grey, asked her as if it were true.

"Yes," the slight then 15 year old with no hesitations in talking about whatever Belle could manage.

Belle took the diversion from her pain, and said, "My middle name is Selene."

"Your name is Belle Selene?" her voice a gentle accented lilt, one she carried far less so now.

"Yes."

"Your name means Bowman of the moon," a thread connected between them, a spark of hope glimmered within Belle, the first glow out of the darkness, "names are important where I come from. Mine means Moon of the Celestial sphere. I'm the sky. You're the protector."

"I don't feel like one."

"The sky shelters you and illuminates your path as much as you protect it."

"Are all people connected by names? Where are you from?"

"All people are connected, names are simply a representation of this. Like ours."

"My mother's name Colette."

"She's not the only connection. A tree has many roots and leaves. Connects above and below."

"You met Charming and Snow. My father was Lee," Belle's voice relaxing deeper, mirroring the innate tranquillity in Emma's.

Emma smiled, food broken apart on her plate, "Lee. The sword, strength. Colette is gold, shines in the darkness. Charming is a powerful charm, and represents the mythical and the real, our seven classical planets — the star that glows at the center, our moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Snow is peaceful warrior."

Belle smiled at her in love friend as she remembered all of their shared history.

* * *

"Um..." Emma blushed as she sighed, "What do you want to know?"

"Everything," Belle snorted, "Ruby is in love, already, with her. Snow and Charming are as impressed as I've ever seen them."

"That is allot to ask of someone still on shift..."

"Oh, please! Totally am pulling the boss angle..." Belle had, at 18, became a board member of Pacer along with Charming and Snow, Colette and Lee.

Emma sighed, "her name is Regina..."

"Emma! Really...this I know," as laughter bubbled between them, "What does it mean..."

"Queen. She is kind. The first week — and I'm sure you've seen Beast's CCTV — she came at three am to have coffee, and give me a gift. She cooks lovely food...she smells like..." Emma shook her head as she drifted into sense memory, "...apples and cinnamon."

"Awesome," Belle said as Ruby fell through the door and bounced up to the counter. She pulled at the coffee before greeting her friends, "So, Regina?"

"Yup," Belle laughed, "What else?"

"Hmmm. She makes me feel sweaty and nauseous, but in the most spectacular way. She's the power to destroy me, but I trust her not too, feeling like this...I don't know, it's like I'm addicted to the, well everything, her taste, her smell..." Emma said, realising as she spoke that two words flashed across her mind — heart invasion — and it floods through her mind, as if an aftermath of a storm, leaving her utterly defenceless. Regina had unequivocally invaded her heart, "She asked me to go to Lake St. Clair for a weekend."

"When are you going?" Ruby said, smugness rolling off of her.

"You've the weekend after next off. I'll schedule you for your trip then," Beast broke in, "Unless you want me to switch your days off to this weekend?"

"Yes, Beast, do it," Belle said.

"NO!" Emma flushed, "Calm down, all of you! I wasn't sure..."

"Don't care..." Ruby sniggered at Emma's reaction, "totally have to go."

"Stop forcing me..."Emma pulled Ruby's coffee cup away from her.

"But you want to go?" Belle asked, quelling the argument.

"I wish I hadn't told you. Yes..." Emma gritted her teeth in resignation, "Beast, put it in for next weekend."

* * *

"That idea...the question you asked me?" Emma said over dinner the next night.

"Yes? About Lake St. Clair?"

"Yes. When were you suggesting?" Emma shrugged uncomfortably, "Because I've next weekend off."

"After this one?"

"Yup."

"Then absolutely."

"You said the three live there...tell me more about them?" Emma asked.

"What more would you like to know?"

"Whatever you'd like to tell me," Emma wanted to hear her voice.

"I told you Cruella is an architect and renovated the cottage we will be staying in," Regina fell silent, unable to fully explain how Cruella had created perfection in each of their individual suites, "We each have our own mini-apartment. Mulan's is muted colours, soft and sleek. Cruella gifted Maleficent with green, the earth and the sun, her rooms bright and warm and comforting, mine in hues of blue, full of the sea and the sky, the galaxy painted across my ceiling. Cruella's own rooms are of studious reflection, relaxed with bookshelves filling the space. She honoured the history of its heavy three shade grey quarry stone foundations, and modernised the interior so it's full of bespoke touches and furniture. It feels like home. Cruella built her reputation on this very tender restoration."

Regina contently sighed before continuing, "Maleficent worked here at a pharmaceutical company as a consultant. She's a horticulturist, and was disgusted in herself for working for such a company. She spent ever increasing amounts of time escaping the banality of her job, to run off to the manor. It took three years before she quit and moved out permanently."

Regina tumbled into past years to when Maleficent moved beyond the trauma of her job and began to utilise her skills in a more holistic way and began to speak of the three in her soft, lyrical voice full of memories sifted through a lifetime of love, "The property edges onto the smaller of the great lakes in the chain, Lake Solstice, and a tributary offshoot snakes nimbly against the edge of our land. The soil is rich, heavy and thick. Maleficent flowed around the land, building a repertoire, creating patterns to work within the curvature of the ground, the structure confines of trees weaving their roots as if veins across the earth. She regrew herself as she seeded life to the ground."

Emma watched Regina saviour the history she shared with her friends. Regina's smile faulted as she said, "Mulan loved marketing. She stayed in the city the longest, completed her MBA, while I was at medical school and became very successful, building business and projecting trends. Mulan worked so much she did not notice life edged her into the corner. I was doing an intense neurosurgery internship. It became our only respite, the occasional trip we took to the Lakes."

Shards of the past and future fractured against each other inside of Regina's voice, "Mulan was in a horrific traffic collision with multiple deaths and she moved out to Westwood to recover. Mulan set up Westwood Manor Garden Atelier for the creation's Maleficent and Cruella were already producing. Part of Mulan's healing came with this renewed interest and dedication, designing the labels, logos and packages for the market stall. Mulan worked with local resources, collecting students for work experience and built connections between the all-year residents, summer residences and locally owned restaurants and hotels to capture the tourist market."

"Why do you stay here?" Emma asked, drawn in by the perfection.

Regina ruminated, knowing her career consumed her time as she went to the manor less and less. She still clinged to something in herself she needed to complete — still needing to hear the scream of the city.

"Because I'm not quite finished. Cruella designed and renovated my apartment. I received the building my apartment is in, along with trusts and portfolio's when I was 25. It is the largest privately owned apartment building in the city. Maleficent was fundamental in the construction and growth of the penthouse garden. The city apartment, really, is an extension of the Manor."

"So, this would be home ground. You're actually taking me to home ground?" Emma echoed Regina's comments about Granny's.

Regina flushed, "Yes."

* * *

Regina's waited in her car for Emma to finish work. Emma threw her backpack over, in-between the seats, kissing Regina before she pulled out into traffic. The drive towards Lake St. Clair is intimidating for Emma, yet she is fascinated, watching the city fade and bigger satellite cities become smaller villages the further they drove. Regina's car is, of course, luxurious, and pristine. She drove like anything else in she did in her life, with assured sanguine confidence. Emma quietly observed Regina.

"Emma?" Regina reached over to tug Emma's hand into her own.

"I'm okay," Emma whispered in her nervousness.

"You can change your mind. We can just go back to the Ellysion?"

"No," Emma said quickly, "I want to go. Really. I want to meet your friends."

"It's still okay to go back."

"I would rather feel uncomfortable with you then be anywhere else," Emma squeezed tightly and leaned back into the chair exhaling, wishing not to feel so inadequate.

"I would rather you feel comfortable."

"I would possibly never leave the apartment. I will fell better when I know what to expect and that will only happen if we get their and I meet them," knowing she would be judged against a relationship she could never have with Regina, one of history interwoven within all their lives. The trilogy lived together longer than Emma had been alive and knew each other as intimately as Killian and herself. Like she wanted to know Regina.

"Okay. Thank you."

"For what?"

"For coming with me," Regina said, as she lifted their co-joined hands and kissed Emma's.

This, their first trip together and Emma didn't know how to balance herself on this rapidly shifting ground. Her mind wove against the lessons learned in her youth, her education balanced everyone against their inter-connectivity to everyone else. She knew Regina meant Queen — she is kissed by the moon and flourished.

"Cruella is transformation and protection. She provides safety, acceptance and habitat. Mulan is the protector, the warrior. She stands, physically, as the barrier, in front of anyone else. Maleficent is the visionary, the one with initiative and flight and she lights the path."

Regina smiled. She pretty much described the three to perfection.

"You are sustenance, the healer. There are four directions, four parts of the compass, centering each other. Cruella is home, which Mulan protects. Maleficent calls the direction. The four of you are the four corners. Together, you complete the circle."

"And you control tides and water, gift the night with light," Regina said.

"Refracted light. Belle's name means bowman of the moon. She is the protector. Ruby is the Goddess' gift, a healer princess," Emma smiles, her voice stiffening and dropped to being barley audible, "Killian is the roots that keep us knitted to the ground, connected to earth and each other."

Nothing further is said until Regina added, "It's just up here."

"Cottage? I think you may have misunderstood what that means," Emma replied as Regina pulled past gates opened by the recessed button and into the driveway of the multi-storied stone building. Regina grabbed Emma's bag off the back seat, wavering her off to walk to the double wide wood doors.

"You have no luggage?"

"No, I keep stuff here."

"Oh. Right. I forgot you kind of live here, too."

Regina twisted the handle, to push with her body against the giant curved wood door, as an overwhelming whine eliciting form the hinges. Regina reached back beyond Emma's bag for her hand and lead her into the foyer, pushing the door closed behind them. Mumbled voices hushed as the squeal of the door quietened.

"Regina?' a voice called from somewhere inside.

"Yes. You need to fix that door. We'll be back in a minute," Regina called back as she lead Emma up the stairs to the third floor and down to the left wing, to her suite of rooms.

Light filtered through bay windows lining the walls looking out to the lake. The bed is huge and dominated the back wall, royal blue curtains tied against posts with ribbons to match the canopy. Regina put her backpack on an overstuffed sofa, part of a mismatched set around a coffee table. Emma turned and released herself from Regina to walk over to the spectacular view.

Regina followed her, seeing the distant view on her face. This room alone was twice three size of Emma's apartment. The window overlooking the Lake ran the length of the wall.

Breaching the gap, Regina laid her hand over Emma's chest, "Breath, Emma, out to my hand."

"I'm okay," Emma whispered, absorbing the lake in the sunlight while trying to balance her breathing, "I'm okay."

"Emma," Regina wraps her hand around Emma and places it on the one already there, "please."

"The conflict is always within myself. Always. It doesn't matter what the struggle is, what the external pressure is. It's mine, my struggle, motivating my unbalance. It is mine, how I survive. Its yours how you do," Emma is integrating this place they had arrived at, clasping her hands over Regina's, balanced on her chest, accepting them in this precious space, "and every now and then, its ours."

"Every time I think..." Regina cupped Emma's face and pulled her in, desperate to quell the humming within her, wild, free bees, vibrating out of her and interrupting her train of thought, her mind on fire as Emma leaned in haphazardly for a kiss, knowing these kisses are a completion within themselves.

It is disturbing how much Emma wanted to this, here, at this moment, living within the taste of Regina on her lips, the ghost of her fingers against her skin, the deeply deadly impression she leaves against Emma's soul. Regina's lips never falter, never relent in their pursuit of grounding them both within this moment all the same, this moment that nothing else exists, except their presences to one another perfect. Emma's brain luminious, her body volcanic as she exists simply for loving the body wrapped in hers. There is no where else she could be at this point.

Moaning, Regina whispered against Emma's lips, "How?"

"Hmmm?" Emma whispered back, plucking kisses as she wished along the edge of forever, holding promises of the future.

"Make me feel..." their lips ghosted against each others again, making her fumble over her worlds, "...like there is no where else you would rather be."

"Their isn't," Emma leaned in, caressing around Regina's mouth with her own thinking that she didn't believe in perfection, she believed in beauty and love and kisses, "Really, kissing you is exactly where I should be. Want to be."

"That simple, huh?"

"Absolutely. It is not within my brain or eyes, nor hands that I want to be creative, but in my heart and the blood it pumps around my body," Emma drew her in again, kissing her breathless, taking away her voice again, centering her exactly where she was, perpetual motion love, "for this is what beats for you."

Emma focused on reeling herself back in, focusing on first the lake, the jetty, the tree line to feel Regina, warm and comforting. She shuddered her breath first, waiting before she took another, relaxing into Regina's presence, surrounding her own hands over the one extended with love. Minutes expanded around them until Emma untensed her body.

"Why is everything you have overwhelmingly stunning?"

"Why thank you. You're stunning," Regina smirked, reaching out and offering her hand, "and thank Cruella. Would you like the tour?"

"Absolutely," Emma turned into Regina, realising she is carrying around the weight of her love, as light as a feather, as heavy as the universe, vibrating within her, shaking out of her.

"That door is the bathroom, that's the study, where the fridge and kettle are."

"You have a kitchen? In your room?"

"Technically, it's in the study. You'll get familiar with what's in here. Let's go," Regina led her back towards the stairs, pointing to the two guest rooms on the other wing of the house and taking her down a level to the suites for Cruella, Maleficent and Mulan, as well as one last guest suite before finally they hit the ground floor, filled with kitchen, dining and living areas. Emma watched her eagerly, observing Regina's supple manipulation of the space around her, even with her economy of movement, her particular particularities that are completely endearing.

The living room is where they found the three residents, circled within each other beyond the bounds of time, chatting, dulling Emma's nerves as they quietly got to know each other, wound stories around questions, love folded within love. The three are intricately laced together, evoking a naturalness unseen by Emma before, so close their communication seemed telepathic, an unworldly trilogy of perfection.

* * *

"How was the weekend?" Ruby asked.

"Unbelievable. It's not a cottage, it's a mansion."

"Really. How much of a mansion are we talking?"

"Regina's en-suite is bigger than out flat. I mean, so is the one in the penthouse, but still. It's three stories and a basement. A cottage it definitely is not."

"Oh..." Ruby murmured, "don't her friends live there?"

"Yes. Maleficent, Mulan and Cruella. They're all together," Emma fluttered her fingers as she shrugged, "they run Westwood Manor Garden Atelier."

"The preserve company? That explains those divine truffles she gave you that first week."

"Mmm, did you try the chili beetroot jam stuff that was more a jelly?"

"Oh, yeah," Ruby moaned, "Actually, I think I still have it..."

Emma reached out and slapped Ruby across the shoulder, "I totally blamed Killian for that!"

"Well...it was good, and you can get more now...so how else was it? How were her friends?"

"Indescribably peaceful," Emma smiled, "They are delightful...calm, relaxed, harmonious. It was..." Emma opened her hands in front of her, "...they just were accepting and inclusive. I don't know how else to say it. You know how we first met, and understood each other? Kind of that."

"And they are all..." Ruby repeated Emma's action, fluttering her fingers.

"Yes. But it is another one of those things, I guess..." Emma smiled, "They simply are. You don't really notice, because it all seems part of everything else."

"I'm glad" Ruby said, "We are all savages worshipping the ideals of love. Love makes you want to purse, to crawl out of darkness and into the light."


	5. Violet Pier

V VIOLET PIER

"Remember how you wanted to show each other our versions of the city?" as Regina nodded, Emma continued, "Well, I've chosen my 24 hours."

"Really?" Regina looked up, sounding excited, "When?"

"Absolutely. We start at one, this Wednesday. I've told Belle. Remember to sleep in."

"Okay...You've that smile again. Wicked," Regina said, "You'll stay on Tuesday?"

"I'm on the late, and we don't need to be anywhere until one. No early wake up call, 'cause I'll want to sleep in."

"Deal. Stay," Regina smiled, "please."

"Okay," Emma blushed as she returned the smile.

* * *

Regina shuddered, as she sunk into the sea, her skin hot under the warmth of the sun, languidly turning as the ocean swelled around her. She felt restrained, unallowed to turn, to move until she slipped into vague conciousness, blinked herself further from the dream, her mind clinging to feeling wet and warm, her body flushing with pleasure, moans eliciting from her lips as tingling sensations wrap up her spine and reverberating into her still waking brain.

Fluttering open her eyes, she looked down her body in the half dark half light and found Emma gently snuffling inside her, swirling her tongue against the excitement thickening within her.

"Emma..." she whispered, her voice husked with sleep, rolling her body, "...please..."

Emma caressed her, stroked down her ribs, never moving her face away, persuasive with the motion of her tongue, whispering kisses over the swell of her clit. Regina closed her eyes, lamenting her sanity as she felt her body building as surround sound tension echoing through her, her mind edging towards oblivion.

Emma continued to leisurely suck while bringing her hand up, drifting inside and lightly twisting her fingers until Regina, sobbed deeply, reverberating her off the bed. Emma persisted, leisurely relishing in Regina's taste, and her swaying motion beneath her, drawing her further out, watching her relinquish completely abdicating to Emma's control, as her body tightened around her fingers, griping them as her body tensed, held, collapsed to the bed.

Emma slowed, kissing against her thigh as she moved her fingers out, licking them clean of her favourite taste. Regina, desiring closeness, attempted to grasp at Emma to pull her up, but finding herself too limp to move, whispered, "Emma, come here, please."

Emma slid up Regina's body, kissing points up her body with sticky, swollen lips until Regina's impatience tugged at her urgently. Emma rolled on her back, pulling Regina to her, siphoning them together, wrapping them close, mumbling between kisses over Regina's forehead, "Go back to sleep."

"Mmmmmm," Regina incoherent, struggled to form words, "you broke the deal."

"Shhhh. I got you. Go back to sleep," Emma lightly spoke, caressing Regina as she drifted in bliss until she relinquished to sleep.

Hours passed until Regina woke, sudden and impatient, traced her finger down to bubbled, darkened flesh bunched in the corner of her lovers back. Emma is beautiful. A thin white collection of scars are jumbled just beneath the crease of her ass, the same side as this burn. Her voice is soft, delicate, as she asked, "What are these from?"

Emma, arm strung across Regina's waist, dopey against the hush of her nails over her skin, the warmth of love, "The hip is from a fire I sat in when I was a toddler, barely able to walk and fascinated by fire. I don't remember it. The cuts are from glass I fell on not long after we came here."

"You sat in fire and glass?" gentle mirth swung beneath Regina's voice, "am I sensing a theme?"

"Probably. The adults freaked out, it took ages to heal. The medic we had dressed it and all I remember doing is crying," she became contemplative and sad, flat, "the glass was different. It was in this skanky, dirty abandoned building, and I was lucky to be wearing jeans. Killian freaked out, didn't cope with the blood. Snow took me to a clinic in the end."

"Ruby?"

"Is unbelievably calm in an emergency, however these were both before we met."

The intimacy between them is a strange and beautifully rarity, a struggle imitating of winter chill. Regina's hands continued to trace the exposed skin, pale in the illumination of the moon, "Beautiful," Regina exhaled, "Beautiful."

Emma blinked slowly sideways at Regina, "Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?" Regina voices is still floating over Emma's body.

"Like I'm you end."

"You are my end. You're totally the end for me. No one else will fill this place beside me, inside of me. Our love, us, is never a beginning style of love, never a starter love. Ours is the ever forever," Regina shifted, worried she had revealed too much, spoke of love, whispered, "don't you feel it?"

Emma sniffed as she snaked up over her body, drifting her lips over increasingly feverish skin, "You're such a challenge," her mouth remained open as she scaled up her body, "to live without," her voice rasped, declivitous, "I can never unlearn these things you say to me. They're etched, permanently, on me, now. How do I live without that?"

Regina softly began to babble, tumbling closer to an edge only Emma could get her too, her mind unstructured itself as her body avaricious, yearned for more kisses and light caresses as Emma's voice drifted to her again, "How do I hear anyone else's voice when yours is incessant in saying beautiful things and filling my head with such things..."

Emma laved her tongue around Regina's nipple, tracing pink over plumb, scratching her teeth around pliant flesh before switching to the other side, bruising her nails over skin mischievously up Regina's thighs.

"Authenticity in this world is always complicated, wrapped in the ambitious schemes of exiles from this world not wishing to seem outdated, sharp edges diffusing even the most opaque of light, even in this fog you put me in, I feel you," Emma resonance low and deep, placing open mouthed kisses up her sternum, the crease between swells, "massive shadows sleep like monsters coiled in the dark and cast shady prisms over the day, where we dream in clarity and reality," Emma drifts down her stomach, tasting the salty sheen covering Regina, smelling the soft intoxication she loved so much, "every wrecked ship retains its own beauty, its own allure for inquisitive souls," Emma could feel Regina's mumbling intensify along with her jagged, hesitant breath, and she lowered herself even more, inching her way to committing heresy against perfect flesh, "raging to find the loss of cruel and vindictive vengeance out here on our tangled cusp of life, it takes fury and fire and flames to untangle our bonds," Emma's story muffled itself as crooked fingers became indicative of hungry savages seeking there meal.

Regina shivered, lost within her desire until for the second time that morning, her orgasm crept up and stole any comprehension left. Emma felt her tense, searing heat escape, then collapse back into the bed. She shuffled back and crawled up the bed to pull Regina into her arms.

"There are no ethics to love, only different parts of you once scattered into many places, now collected into this heavenly form," Emma whispered, gently running her hands up and down Regina's back, "and I adore every single part."

The rest of the morning quiet, staying in bed until their desire for food drove them into the kitchen. Emma drifted to the bathroom and to get ready, haphazardly in jeans and a torn shirt picturing a roller derby unicorn. Regina came in as she was brushing her teeth, dressed in the jeans and crisp, white shirt Emma laid out for her.

"This is what we're wearing?"

"Absolutely. Its very functional," Emma spat out white foam, running the tap.

"Okay. When are we leaving?" Regina, barefoot and looking magnificent, asked.

"As soon as you're ready," Emma rinsed her mouth out, and turned as she lifted her head to grab a towel, before dropping it, distracted by Regina's beauty, exhaling sharply as she said, "Wow...go, go put sneakers on."

"What?" Regina frowned.

"You're insufferably beautiful," Emma leaned forward with minted breath to kiss Regina, "Wow. Go. Before we get distracted."

Walking out to the post midday sun, shifted high in sky, a mini-bus was waiting. Emma opened the door, following Regina as she stepped in and sat halfway down the back, the van worked back through traffic until moving into the Yoshiko district, a family orientated suburb south-west of the city.

Yoshiko was full of large and manicured lawns, candy coloured flowers in geometric designs, vans and soccer mums. This was the quietest place she had been in the city, the most she had seen in an attempt to make it pretty, and keep the bleak blue gray empire of cement and steel away. The van drove to a generic house.

Emma leaned close and said, "Words are permanent, scaring between us to knit lives together."

Regina turned her head and looked at Emma slightly confused.

"This is SPW Alpha House. These women here are very damaged, destroyed, scared, and haven't been put back together yet."

Regina nodded following Emma out of the bus, "Okay."

"I come to one of the houses once a week to do various things. Today, we make lunch."

The two story timber and cement home was quiet. The backyard had a playground with several children swinging upside down. Walking into the kitchen carrying shopping bags, Regina watched four other volunteers separate, two went out the back, as the other two delved deeper into the house with two boxes.

Emma and Regina stayed in the kitchen with the table full of bags, and started unpacking, Emma separated sandwich ingredients from the rest and left them out together on the bench. It took several minutes of shuffling around to finish. Emma picked up the several bathroom products left, and indicted to Regina to wait before slipping into the house.

Regina began on the sandwiches, looking out into the yard, negotiating the gravity of Emma bringing her here, the trust she is sharing, letting her into a fundamental part of her life. Regina simultaneously filled with a feeling of unworthiness, while falling further in love.

Emma shuffled back in, carrying a box. She slid it on the table before walking over to help, "Thank you for getting it started."

"That's okay. What's the box?"

Emma smirked as she looked at Regina with a wicked grin on her face, "Well..."

"You know that's not what I meant."

"I know," Emma kept the wicked grin as she continued, "this is Alpha House. It's the first house battered women, and their children, come too. They don't really leave until at least the bruises fade. Sometimes until the trial, if there is one. There is therapy, medical and a teacher comes on-site to home school the children, efore they transition back to school. Clothing and food is provided while in Alpha. The box is part of book exchange with the other houses so donations are rotated."

"Okay," Regina hadn't seen a resident yet, but could hear the mower start out the back, a vacuum whirr overhead, "Why here?"

"Because sometimes others stories become our own. Snow mother's, Lee and Eva, ran Granny's before she did, as a bespoke smash repair shop. Lee trained with her father as a mechanic, always tinkering as long as she could remember. She knew no other life than the one with her father, who knew no better way to raise his daughter than by his side. Lee met Eva while she drove for a towing company, bringing wreckage's to be repaired or disassembled," Emma's knife sliced cucumber.

"They circled around each other for months, flirting beyond the comprehension of Eva's husband. When courage finally sent a bruised and broken Eva away from her husbands violent hands and vicious demeanour, she hid with Lee, cocooned herself with comfort yet still maintained this awful state of emotional fear while he stalked the shadows, relentlessly watching Eva after he found her at Granny's. His mind unravelled, descending into paranoia and pain, loosing his grip on reality, until eventually he was committed to Avalon Asylum. This is Snow's biological contributor. Eva created a life with Lee and they told her pure facts when she found out two women couldn't have a child together. They explained he was sick and no longer alive. I suppose to a certain extent, he wasn't, especially to Eva, who didn't recognise him any more. When Snow found out the truth, Eva's truth, she founded SPW to honour Eva. She collects the unwanted, abused and neglected and gives them a home to honour Lee, who had given her and Eva the best possible life."

Regina quiet and contemplative, continued through two loaves of bread, a salad and three jugs of juice and iced tea. How could she respond to such an admission, even if she could talk around the lump assaulting her throat? Her mind whorled around Snow's experience, filtered via the extraordinary woman working beside her. Placing the completed meal on the table, the two volunteers from inside the house came, bringing another two boxes to join them in the kitchen, "Ready?"

"Yes," Emma said nodded, walking back to the van and waving goodbye to the children.

Emma turned to Regina as the van drove towards the city, "This house is the quietest. Bravo house is better, kind of a respite for longer term recovery. Charlie is almost a halfway house. Delta is long term accommodation apartments. All are, obviously, run by Smash Punch Women, privately funded by Pacer, Granny's and the annual charity ball. Sometimes by public donations."

Regina nodded, listening as her soul ached for Emma, until the van stopped and Emma entwined her fingers with Regina's, pulling her out of the car, calling thanks before slamming the door to weave her way into the crowd.

"It seems..." she squeezed Emma's hand, silence within the crowd surround them, daylight flickering with Regina's gentle voice as she settled into Emma's comfort wrapping around them, "both excellent that a service such as Smash exists and awful that it needs too."

"One's future, anyone's future, is driven by desire," Emma's mouth curls into the smile that makes Regina's heart stop, a half hidden truth in the crest of her face, "irrelevant of money or status, passion and desire is what spurns us, coverts us, goads us. We all know of people who've spent every last penny pursuing desire, and others who pulled themselves from poverty to make millionaires lists. Passion, desire. These things are intangible, but dictate us. I desired freedom. Still do, I guess. I may not have it, yet I seek it as ants do sugar, involuntarily, impulsively, in the pauses of music, in the dawn of light, in the musk of desire. SPW exists for the same reason. Passion. Desire. Errant as it may be."

"Hmm," Regina agreed, kissing Emma while murmuring against sun warmed lips, "What's this plan?"

"Violet Pier," Emma smiled as she raised Regina's entwined hand to her lips, "Arts festival."

"Violet Pier has an Arts Festival?"

"You've never been?"

"No..." Regina couldn't remember even having heard about this one. She usually attended the Briar District Arts and Cultural Festival.

"Good. We can enjoy it together."

"But, you've been here..."

"I performed here, for the last four years, never been socially."

"So, no performing this year?"

"No. This year, I get to share it with you." Emma raised their hands as she gently brushed her lips against Regina's hand again.

Violet Pier is busy, the sinking sun light fading against the flood of neon fluorescent lights, as rising tide caused petite spitting at the wooden pylons. The water slightly purple, sparkling shade against the reflecting sun.

Stalls intermingled with circus tents and stages, sections weaving together, food knitted with painting, hemmed by leather work, scattered by gilded toys. Blending with the crowd, frequent voices called hello to Emma as music reached them, drums beating a rhythm into their throats. Waist-coated clowns juggling fire stalked through the crowd, casting shadows wrought from flame.

"Hi, Henry," Emma smiled, rounding stilted legs hitching lecherously through the crowd to the small wooden stage housing a vast collection of life re-purposed as instruments. Henry lifted her head, twisting the lid back on her bottle of water, as she leaped up and hugged Emma.

"Hi Emma," a wicked smile crossed her face as she held up a hand, "Wait, I've an idea."

Henry moved to pull up a case from the box behind the stage and handed it across to Emma, "Play?"

Emma unclasped the case and picked up the violin, looked between Henry and Regina, who nodded happily, before answering, "Okay."

Emma walked and stood behind left of Henry as they danced against each other, music drifting from them, bouncing around the crowd. Regina melted back into the crowd wanting to observe. Standing between art stalls, she noticed the sign pinned to the outside wall of the stall behind them stating, "All contributions will be donated to Smash Punch Women."

Playing to a crowded liturgy, Henry concentrated, swinging against Emma's osculation, the violin taunt against the curved tension strung in Emma's arm. Regina watched the precision of movement, the drift between the bow and fingers etched in heaven. Music swung back and forth between them, winding the sound out to the crowd, yet only Regina stood, enraptured by Emma.

Regina fell deeply into the chasm of Emma, scared as hell she wanted her so badly, the sound lingering in her soul, buzzing through her body as if it is always meant to be, here, now, perfect.

Emma put the violin away and said goodbye to Henry and drew Regina further into the deepening sky, turned through a tent and out to a circle of performances within sideshow ally, noisy and lit up against the darkness.

"Pick what you want to play," Emma said, digging into her pocket for cash.

"I don't think I've ever played..." Regina shrugged,

"So? Its not like any of them are highly skilled..."

"What about that one?" Regina pointed to the shooting duck game. Emma paid the vendor for three games, and gave Regina the faux gun. She missed in all of these.

"See. I told you..." Regina, laughing, placing the gun back onto the counter.

"That's not the point of playing, though..." Emma giggled, "Its to have fun and we are."

"So, you try then."

Emma picked up the gun after acquiring three more plays. She hit the first shot, which Regina cheered at, before she missed the second shot. She clipped the last one. The vendor showed them cheap trinkets to pick from.

"Go on," Emma indicated the tray.

"You won," Regina shook her head.

"My day, my rules, now pick." Emma demanded, pointed at the tray.

Regina pursued the items and picked a small magnet of a Violet Pier, "happy?"

"Yes" Emma snarked, happy beneath the armour.

Regina lent in to Emma, wanting her, all of this craving between them for each other, and kissed her, "Why here?"

"Because I volunteer, perform and have worked at this festival every year since I've been here. I like entertaining. But, also, its nice enjoying something for pleasure, just for us."

A voice drifted as a hand appeared with squares of fried food in a chip container, "Hi Emma."

Emma turned to find stilt legs before bright stripped tent and she looked up at the face attached to smile, "Thanks Kali," grabbing some of the chips, as another figure appeared before them, "Hi Estella."

"Hi Emma, go on in," Estella nodded at Regina, waving them through into a darkened space without tickets.

There are contortionists in various shades of flexibility hanging from hoops and ropes strung from the sky. Regina scanned the roof while breathing in the powdered, scented air as bodies twisted above them, enchanting with movement softly broken over time while the figures remained suspended. Gradually the pair wandered out into pathways strung with fairy lights pushing darkness to the corners. Coming out of the festival, Emma led them to the monorail.

"You seem to know a few people."

"Most of them were Pacer staff."

"OK," Regina stood, observing the stillness of Emma, "A lot of them were performing."

"Yes, Pacer prides itself on its talented staff," Emma shrugged, "Pacer is really a performance emporium. Like I said, I would've performed, but I preferred to take you."

"Thank You," Regina, her hand taking Emma's, as she leaned closer, responding to the breeze rippling across the platform. The carriage squealed to a halt for them to step on, "Will you tell me where we're going?"

The carriage pulled out as Emma snorted, "No. Where's the fun in that? I can tell you that its three stops from here."

Riding the rest of the way in silence, quietly looking at each other, undercurrents sparkling between them, resting inside their heartbeats, filling wounds fractured against their matching souls. Emma led them out, down the cracked cement stairs to the pavement, and took them up the street.

A crooked turn in the road curved into an illuminated a group of bars and restaurants nestled together. Emma led Regina to the sheltered awning four doors down with an old mortuary sign hung over the door. ANTIQUE ATELIER.

Emma walked in and the maitre'd, dressed as an undertaker, leaned in to kiss her on the cheek, "Emma."

"Ophelia," as Emma reached across to hug her.

"The usual booth?"

"Please," as they were led to a booth secluded at the back of the restaurant, and once seated Emma turned, "Thanks, O. Whose on the bar?"

"Cat."

"Excellent. She'll know," Emma smiled as Ophelia walked away.

"So," Regina looked at the exposed brickwork, "Antique Atelier. Another place where you know everyone? Where are the menu's?"

"Yes, I know the staff. There are actually menu's, but this is my 24 hours and I already planned our meal."

Their waitress walked up with cocktails and settled them on the table, "Thanks Mia."

"You're welcome. Enjoy."

"What's this place to you?" Regina asked.

"When I was homeless, I got a job here. Washing dishes. They let me shower here. There was always a staff meal," Emma looked at Regina, "They didn't ask questions I couldn't answer. Paid in cash. It used to be a funeral parlour. That's why all the names are death associated."

"Cat and Mia?"

"Yes. Catastrophe and Anaemia," Emma swallowed her drink, "I like this space. Ruby and I play a jazz night here on occasion. Its not overly obnoxious with the theme."

Regina sipped her drink, comforted in listening to Emma's voice, inevitably eliciting soft smiles from her lips.

"How young were you?"

"Fourteen?"

"And they employed you?"

"Yes, I wasn't the only one. They employed a lot of us undesirables. Paid fairly, gave us benefits."

"Were you scared?"

"No. Yes. Never. Always." Emma shrugged, "Of course, we made friends here, play jazz here, we earned enough to survive."

Regina reached over and took her hand, "was survival enough?"

Emma sighed in return, "I've never desired human company before. You, I seem to want irrevocably."

"Why? And Ruby? Belle? Killian? The ladies?" Regina questioned, having taken to referring to Charm and Snow appropriately.

"Killian is my responsibility. The others are an accident as much as you are - accidents of love and fortune. In a world of muses, only the constant stay to sabotage and to provoke, excite and love, as both the outrageous and the intimate, elegant lines of the future perfectly drawn. At the end of any tunnel is illumination, a pulse of light where one can either defy or define their humanity, by choice of surrender or retribution. Unstoppable force, immovable object. Us."

"That sounds brutal, as if you are dead reef spinning off into currents, out of control, with nothing to hold onto. You seem to break me, in so many ways. You make it sound bleak, as if what matters not what we think..."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to. I mean a lot of it like an act of beauty, not all of what we're told matters. I know you matter. We matter. Surrendering to love is not a brutal thing. Its an amazing thing, really. Being raised the way I was, as a child, I was in a tunnel coming here, and remained one for so many years. Ruby and Belle and Charm and Snow. We are all together, each others lights in life, shining."

Regina is still, paused, captivated by Emma, but then a little hurt that she wasn't mentioned as a light.

"You're my illumination, you know. Everyone I love is a torchlight, but you. You are brilliant. We were raised to be completed, thought to be beyond the physical and rule the spiritual. We were not taught how love can fracture you, crack you apart," Emma shrugged, as her voice snaked around Regina, appetisers filled the space between them and fresh drinks appeared as old ones emptied. Main meals shared within the curved booth, winding closer together until curled together as dessert was served.

"Why do you know exquisitely perfectly words to say?" Regina sighed, finding there continual mention of love endearing without actual statement.

"Because careless words allow people to love you less. They alter the way you feel, quiet insidiously, creeps up on you. Its crucial to evaluate every emotion you articulate," she deftly leaned in and kissed Regina, "actions should support the power of words, however never overshadow them," she plucked another kiss, "even though the physical is fun."

Emma led them out of the booth and away to the midnight chill, walking to an underground station and down to the yellow train.

Regina yawned, "We're going to be sleeping?"

"Not yet, Princess," Emma stretched the gap between them, tasting the infinite within their kisses, "Two more stops before bed."

"Two?" Regina murmured.

"Yes. This one I think you will like," Emma gripped her hand, taking them out the train and up to ground level, the midnight moon shimmering.

Regina looked around in the darkness, street lights scattering orbs of yellow at distant intervals, "Where are we?"

"Kahtya. You trust me?" Emma answered, taking Regina's hand, not needing to add the "slums" on the end of the district name.

"Yes," Regina, looking around the desiccation, assaulted by the smell, bodies moving in the shadows.

"Good, come," Emma led her along the street they exited onto and over to an odd warehouse, giving Regina barely enough time to notice the river gleaming in the background.

There are quite a few people joining their walk inside, ghosts against the random spotlights haphazardly set up. The inside of the building is dilapidated, smelling of water and dirt, and Regina tripped over cords tangled on the wet cement, helicoptering out as Emma's arms extended to catch her, grateful for the sneakers.

"Careful..." Emma stabilised Regina, "its not particularly safe."

"I guess not," Regina heard the voices of others around her, musicians playing somewhere in the corner.

"Let me show you," Emma, taking Regina's hand, bringing her out of shadows and into the space, filled with crumbling brickwork and bodies moving within the artwork, becoming part of it. Emma threw a scattering of of gold coins donations into a coffin presided over by a terrifying horror movie clown manning the entry.

"Emma..." Regina, loosing the breath held within her, whispered. Still griping Emma's hand, she shuffled her head, absorbing the scale of architectural art, sweeping within the building. She could glimpse actors performing a play in one section of the space and is lost within this.

As they walked further into the space, they stopped to watch clowns, mimes, see graffiti art, chase through mazes and climb stairways to perspex tanks filled with poisonous fish, distorting the swelling crowd.

Emma finally pulled her into a corner, "Regina, you okay?"

"Yes, this is so..." Regina lifted her hand to caress Emma's face, "...impressive."

"I thought you'd like it," Emma stole a kiss.

"This place?" Regina asked, brought back inside their adventure.

"This is the Renegade Idiocracy Transformation. Its an annual instillation art event, and held in whatever abandoned relic is left in Kahtya between 11 at night and 3 in the morning. The donation coffin goes to the medical clinic. The clowns are Troupe de Travesty, mimes from Symposium of Silence. The Architecturelist..." Emma pointed to the stairs and sky pool, "...Ana Kiset Theater," indicating the play still evolving in a corner.

"I've definitively never heard of this," Regina smiled, "Can we see more of Ana Kiset Theater?"

"Of course," Emma smiled, and lead them over to the performance.

"But you didn't tell me why."

"I found out about it when we lived here. Kahtya is easy to disappear within," Emma shrugged, "Its just one of those events you find out about, and it does support the free health clinic, which I definitively needed during our first year."

Regina squeezed her hand, unable to find anything to say.

"Regina, don't," Emma halted, turning Regina to look at her, "don't look so...hurt...when I say something about being homeless. Please. I'm alive and living."

"You give so much..." Regina said quietly, "volunteering and supporting events like this..."

"Of course I do. I used a lot of the services I now support. I survived because of them. Its only right to pay them back, but, please, Regina, don't feel sorry for me."

"Okay, I promise," Regina quickly kissed Emma, "really, we're together, which is for more important than your past."

As it edges towards half past two, Regina looked tired. Emma tugged at her arm, and lead her back to the subway. Regina buried her face inside Emma's neck, hedging their bodies against each other, before moaning as Emma led her out into another place she wasn't familiar with.

Slipping through the darkness and into the flashing lights of Harper's, Emma melted through the crowd to reach Ruby on stage. The crowd was dancing and Emma encouraged Regina to join her, pulling her into the deliberate exhibitionism, swirling creatures of circumstance and bodies flowing around them.

* * *

Daylight filtered through the grimy window as Emma's alarm sprang beeping into the morning. Emma's mattress on the floor shifted as she struggled to untangle herself from the sheets.

"What time is it?"

"Eight," Emma reached the alarm to silence it.

"But, we got back at five."

Regina slept shakily in Emma's flat, with the coldness of the room and the haphazard bare mattress on the floor. She cannot remember ever having slept on a mattress on the floor before. In a tent, on a beach, in hostels, but nothing like this.

The ambient sounds loud and immediate, as if the cars were in the room and the monorail just outside the door. Nothing is silent. This is the first time Regina had been inside Emma's place, let alone stayed the night.

"Come on. Get up. We need to shower and get out of here. We have 20 minutes."

"Why? It..."

"Regina. Lets go," Emma tugged a still groaning Regina out of bed, "You requested 24 hours of my city. Lets go."

Regina became extra cranky that the shower is not large enough for the two of them, managed to finish and dress in the clothes Emma had for her, thumbing the fabric, "This is beautiful. Silk?"

"Yup. I wanted it to feel like raw silk yet look like Egyptian cotton. Breezy and flowy like your body."

"Thank You," Regina looked at Emma with unbridled fondness, "where did you get this."

"Little market stall in Violet Pier," Emma hustling her out and onto the bright street, leading them through monorail stops and alleys to Granny's.

Snow joined them while waiting for their take away order, "Ladies. Coffee?"

"Snow. Please," Emma smiled.

"Yes, of course. Cappuccino, no sugar?"

"Yes," Regina said as Snow efficiently made them and brought them over.

"This coffee is closer to a thick shake," Regina sipped at Snow's coffee, softly moaning at the density.

"So, hows it been?"

"Good," Regina shrugged, still waking with the coffee.

"Just good?" smiled Emma smirked, "well then."

"That's not what I meant."

"We went to Alpha, VPF, Antique, RIT and Harper's."

"Oh, well, lucky I made you coffee triple strength," Snow laughed.

Three voices chatted over coffee until three plain paper bags appeared. Emma pulled Regina up and back out into the sunshine, calling, "Seeya Snow."

"Where are we going?" Regina twisted her gloved fingers within Emma's, knowing she wouldn't tell, wondering why they did not bring coffee with them.

"Its just past nine. You're almost done." Emma nudged her, seeing the question on her face, "we're going to visit Belle and Beast."

"Really?"

"Yes, but just so you know, Belle has always been a prodigy, understood the mechanics of the world and how it all fits together. Except how people work. She rebuilt a 1929 Ford Model A with her father, Lee, while she was so little it dominates her earliest memories with the smell of oil and grease. Entwined through all of this encoding she learnt. She has obsessively created Beast and reconfigures her incessantly, because she misses the human clues. You are warned."

"You've that devilish smile..." Regina, disorientated as to where exactly they were, said, "And she needs a warning?"

"No. You do. Don't freak out. Belle and Beast are awesome."

"Hmmm. What are you leading me into?"

"You'll love it," Emma answered as she walked down a steep set of stairs to a coded door, which Emma promptly entered and pushed open.

The place was full of deceptively white hallways. Emma swiped a pass card at the next door. The elevator was swift in decent. Emma led Regina along and into the Hive, took the bag she was carrying and put them, rustling, onto the kitchen bench, wondered over to the coffee machine, buzzing it to life and pulled out Granny's coffee brand. This left Regina to look around, bewildered and out of place, wearily around the underground room.

"Emma," a voice yelled.

"Belle. Its about time you got up," Emma walking around the Kitchen, extracting plates and cutlery, food from bags and finishing off coffee.

Regina's eyes finally found Emma, plating the food over the stainless steel bench. She walked over to sit at the breakfast bar.

"This is a stupid time," Belle grumbled.

"I'm sure Regina would agree with you. It's edging towards nine thirty. But we are late, and I'm sure you'll survive," Emma called back, before saying more softly, "Did you win Beast?"

Regina jumped as a disembodied voice emanated from the room.

"Of course. Their methodology was flawed."

"What was the final score?"

"Hundred percent wins. Baseline one eight two over two one nine."

"Good Girl Beast," Emma finished Regina's cup of coffee and put it in front of her as Belle staggered out and over to a chair only to rest her head on the breakfast bar groaning as Emma pushed a cup at her.

"Belle. Seriously," Emma reached over and smacked her across the head, "this is Regina."

"Ow. Coffee. Champion," Belle lifted her head, "Hi."

"Hello..."

"You brought breakfast. Emma, you're amazing." Belle finally realised, pulling a plate towards herself.

Emma pushed a plate at Regina and took the last one for herself. Regina abstractly ate, too distracted looking around. Belle's eyes were startling aquamarine. The apartment an open plan space, the kitchen in one of the corners. The living area next to this, the bedroom opposite to the kitchen, the bathroom in the other corner.

The central area a blue corded tunnel roof to floor with four screens set at intervals about a meter off the ground. Four square seats sat in front of them. Silence broken only by the sound of coffee and food. Belle finished and stood to wash her hands. Regina looked back to find Emma watching, her eyes soft and with the gift of a smile.

"Sorry, Regina," Belle returned from the sink and sat back down, "I wanted to meet you and I'm afraid I was up late last night and am not a morning person. Emma just does not shut up about you. Always wrapped in that smile."

"That's okay. I'm just surprised. You're quite...elusive. You're Charm' niece?" Regina turned to Belle, and gasped as her eyes were Emma's shade of green, "Your eyes?"

"Not really. I can escape more than people think. Very few people know what I look like. Those who do would never tell. I dance upstairs. I'm able to run around the store, access security feeds. I'm never bored," Belle giggled softly, "Sorry, they do that. I was born blind. They're completely fake, computers really."

"I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you, but I did warn you," Emma flushed and Regina realised there are two many things to focus on.

Belle shrugged, "I was born without eyes but with sockets and my father and Aunt made me these. They were changed as I grew older, and I learnt to reprogram and use them. They're useful. I can change their colour. If I'm lazy, like now, I've them set to reflect my company, people I love. With Charm and Snow, my eyes almost go black. With my mother, they'd go opaque. With Nana, the world was one of soft focus yet harsh realities. With Charm, life is one of distinct, sharp focus, yet attainable pursuits. I developed my eyes along with technology, adding filters and shades, projected life and streamed it, always tinkering with the orbits shaped items."

"Ah. Okay." Regina saw Emma smile as she forged ahead, "Infamous because of the privacy?"

"You got it. Beast's programmed not to appear unless explicitly stated," Belle flashed Emma a smirk, "She tends to scare people. But I heard you asked about her."

"Yes. I did. Why does she scare people?"

"She is a learning AI. Her interactions allow her to learn at an exponential rate. When she wants to ask questions, there's always the staff, but she could also interact with customers. There are specific protocols..." Belle shrugged, as her eyes reflected Regina's unrepentant sable brown, "...but, she runs Pacer. All interactions are already her. Would you like to meet her?"

Regina smiled at Belle. Emma is breaking her open to fascinating worlds and none of this was terrifying to her. Humans had the greatest capacity for evil, and there were no protocols or electricity controlling them,"OK."

"She is waiting for you to ask."

"Beast..." Regina said, her voice as sure as she was, "...can you please come out?"

A figure flickered to visibility a meter from Regina. Beast looked startling like Belle, but had sharper cheekbones and teal eyes.

"Hello," Beast tilted her head.

"Hello," Regina smiled, delighted, "I hear you like to ask questions."

"Yes." Beast walked over and shimmered in the chair next to Regina.

For the next two hours Beast spoke intently with Regina, until Emma said they would return another day. Emma took Regina back out into the day, and strolled towards the street.

"That was amazing. All of it. Thank you."

"Your welcome," Emma said stopping next to where the town car was waiting, "I thought you may need the car instead of the way I travel."

"You're perfect," Regina slipped in and sunk into the seat, checking her watch, "Your 24 hours is up 32 minutes."

"I'm deliciously imperfect and I've only one extra thing," Emma rested her head down onto Regina's shoulder, "on the list. But it may extend past the allotted time..."

"Really?" Regina's voice softer as her breathing deepened. Emma ran her hands over the shirt, slipping her hand underneath and gently raked her nails over the skin of her stomach, raising the desired reaction as Regina gasped, "Okay, Okay. I'm awake."

The car glided to a stop for both to exit and walk past the doorman to the elevator. Regina felt Emma's insistent touch at the base of her spine, slow caressing finger's tingling against her skin. Daylight flooded from the windows as they fell through the door and Emma pulled at Regina's shirt. Regina responded quickly, rapidly unzipping Emma's pants, moaning as she saw Emma's eyes darken to obsidian.

Emma's kisses twisted from her mouth to run down to her neck, teeth running the gauntlet of Regina's body, pushing her against the wall to feel the drenched, slippery tautness. Emma dropped to the floor, beneath the body breathing heavily above her and sat against her knees as she snaked her arms around Regina's quivering legs, lifting her face to perfection.


	6. Locust Grove

VI LOCUST GROVE

"Why don't you live at Lake St Clair?"

They were sitting in the glasshouse, watching the sky fade to purple. Regina knew truth fell from her lips, "Because I was afraid. I am afraid. I'm close to them, but am not one of them. They're bound together beyond love."

"You're not bound?"

"They are themselves," Regina sighed, unable to explain the isolation created in being the only friend not intimate within the relationship, simply a natural consequence of them belonging exactly where they are. The three languished exquisitely around each other and were only to each other, loved beyond measure, as any gifted trilogy should.

"Are you not?" Emma noticed the sorrow dancing behind Regina's eyes.

"Because I...am myself, yes, but I'm not part of that...romantic relationship," truth is this knife slicing between them, "after they became three, there was this this pervasive sense of life teetering on perfection. They transformed into beauty they'd been unsure they could ever feel. This intense love broke through, allowing serenity into their lives. From our disenfranchised lives and broken families, they build connections born of choice. I am, naturally, on the very edge of inclusion. I never knew how to negotiate this...feeling. Those three are as improbable as us. Yet. Still. There they are. Here we are and I am, flawed, finding myself having difficulty negotiating what everything means."

"I understand," Emma desired Regina, desired all that fell between their displaced souls, filling the breaches with each other, "we are both flawed. Yet. Here we are. Preferring to be with each other."

"I want to show you my 24 hours...' Regina said.

"Yes?" Emma smiled, standing from the grass, "Did you factor in sleep?"

"Much better than you."

Emma smirked as she lent down and pulled Regina up, "Really?"

Linking arms to walk down to the apartment, "We'll need to be in the car at four."

"Seriously? That's insane."

"It's my 24 hours. You're frequently awake that early."

"No, I'm still awake that early."

"You only allowed me three hours sleep!"

Emma laughed, "Okay, Okay, but I've made up for it since..."

"I suppose you have," Regina snickered, "however, I feel we should at least attempt to get some sleep."

* * *

The car service is waiting at the door of Ellysion. Always the same black sleek luxury, the interchangeable chauffeur opening the door seamlessly for the pair to enter. Spring caused an early morning chill and the few steps from door to door allowed a lisp of condensation upon their breath, with the buildings insulated against the damp sky from reaching the ground, street lights producing a murky grey. Emma snuggled into Regina, wrapping her hands underneath her light coat, not even attempting to resist the urge to fall asleep.

"Do you care where we're going?" Regina wrapping her arms around Emma in response, mumbling into her hair.

"Not at all. I trust you," Emma burrowed further in, feeling the smile leaping across Regina's face and settling throughout her body.

Regina felt the weight of Emma, with its barely there warmth and is infinitely comforted as she looked out at the constantly adjusting scenery, waiting for the ghostly gray to fall beneath the yellow glow. Emma kept close for the hour trip, drifting within the sound Regina's heartbeat made. Regina kissed Emma gently to pull her from her daze.

"Hmmm," Emma moaned, tracing Regina's arm until her hand is firmly grasped, held within Regina's own as her tongue traced along her bottom lip, pulling them further together, leaning into softness as the car curved left, tugging at the gravel before pulling into an open space. Colourful balloons swollen in the sky are tied against rattan baskets. Regina pushed Emma from the car and walked them over to a clip board wielding organiser.

"Mills, Regina, two."

"Thanks, Six, the swirled multicolour," he pointed to one a third of the way across the dark field.

"Thanks," Regina slipped their hands together and as they walked, the hissing sound of propane gas burners firing shushed into the quiet. Several were already burned in the sky.

"Ballooning?" Emma was looking at the giant bright bulbs sitting above them as they passed.

"Yes," Regina's eyes suddenly widened, "you're not afraid of heights?"

"No," Emma snorted as they came to their balloon, "rainbow?"

"Hey, I just booked it. It didn't come with an option of balloon material design."

"Hello," the operator jumped against the ground in front of them, "I'll be your driver today, Allura."

"Hi. Regina, this is Emma."

"You both ready to go? All the checks are done."

"Yes," Emma nodded as she clambered into the basket, steadying Regina as she followed, settling in before being untethered from the earth and tilting skyward. Allura watched the entire time, observing and adjusting the burn while negotiating the rise.

"How spectacular," Emma smiled, speaking against Regina's ear.

"Really," Regina relaxed, "you like?"

"Yes, I would never have thought of it," Emma smiled as she moved against the edge of the basket and looked over the valley, "how long are we up here?"

Regina moved against her, wrapping her arm into Emma's, "About an hour. The car will pick us up where we land."

"How can the earth look so large and so small at the same time?" whispered Emma, "its magnificent and terrifying."

"Yes," her fingers tightening around Emma's arm, resting their bodies in full contact with one another.

Allura had that spectacular ability to be unobtrusive even in this tight space. Emma anchored herself to Regina as she drank in the view, spiralled her turmoil into the peace this offered. Noise was a vacuum, only broken by propane. They landed in a field after an hour, the basket stuttering against the ground. Emma clambered out, turning to help Regina, who stumbled and knocked them both over onto the ground. Emma giggled, until she was breathless.

"Regina, you're a delight."

"A success, yes?"

"Absolutely utterly amazing."

Regina pushed herself off of Emma and helped her up, pulling her into a hug, "thank you for joining me."

"This is very special. You brought me to share in this. Why?"

"The first time was at the village fete near where our school was. All of these locals knew Mulan, knew her family, judged her and were nasty, unforgiving of her opportunity. It was ugly to watch. Maleficent took us up in the balloons, to escape. Told us stories of wizards and tornadoes and magic shoes. Made sure Mulan knew we loved her and not the horrible things they said, changing the mundane into the beautiful."

"Life is large and insignificant. We are larger and stronger than what seeks to destroy us. They're insignificant. We're the power, stronger than the insignificant."

"Exactly. How do you always know what I mean?"

"Because I'm me and you're you and we're us," Emma smiled in the morning light.

Regina kissed her, impulsively joyful, "Come," pulling her too the car, inside, warming them up.

Emma stretched out over Regina, "What's up next?"

"I'll never tell," their lips caressed each others, gently loving each other within the gaps.

Both quiet as the car silently moved through the valley, a short while later turning into another gravel road. Emma left the car and looked up at the rustic wooden sign mounted over the steps leading to the veranda. Kathryn. Regina came and stood next to her before leading her up the stairs to a table overlooking the valley.

"Kathryn?"

"Yes."

"No menu's?"

"Oh. I took a lesson from you and prepared our champagne breakfast order already. Its traditional after ballooning."

"Okay..." Emma laughed, delighted, "So. Why here?"

"Kathryn and I were at medical school together. Turns out she hated medicine."

"A bed and breakfast is quite a radical change."

"Yes. Well. Its kinda perfect. Its close to the city, yet far enough away for an overnight or weekend trip. But this café is why I come."

"Not the bed?"

"No," Regina snorted, "her wife is brilliant, amazing and would kick my ass."

"Her wife?"

"Yes. Cameron Zoe," a smirk graced Regina's lips.

"That television show, magazine empire Cameron Zoe, the garden architecture one?"

"Yes, that's her."

"Yes, totally agree she is amazing and could kick your ass."

"Thanks. You read The Garden Goddess?"

"No. Charm and Snow love her."

"Okay. Maybe we'll set up dinner."

"Sure."

Their breakfast arrived and eating in the slice of sunshine illuminating their table, both methodically worked anti-clockwise around their plates. This gave them great pleasure, sharing a predication for how they ate. Emma felt tranquil as they finished and walked back to the car, slipping satiated inside.

"Its still early," Emma said, fully awake and now confined to a car, sliding over to Regina and kissing her.

"Yes it is" Regina smiled at the energy, kissing back, "and we're already onto our next activity."

"Mmmm," Emma mumbled against Regina's lips, "How much time do we have?"

"I don't think so," Regina murmured back, "We may irrevocably shock our driver..."

They were lost in each other until the car shuttled around and stopped again, shit down and the driver opened Emma's door.

"Emma. Go on," Regina pushed her towards the door and out into the early crystal pallor. Hills edged larger and knitted together, creating a valley. The city unstrung behind them.

"An apple orchard?" Emma looked to the other cars in the lot, people slowly bubbling through an arch with Honey Queen Apple Orchard swirled in metal.

"Of course. The first spring haul."

"Tell me why?"

"Coming here is a yearly tradition, attending the first spring pick of the season and for me is, the perfect compilation of space and solitude. It is gratifying, the smell of the apples first scenting the orchard, then the car and, at last, my apartment. The smell always reminds me of life and renewal. Locust Grove was once a village now since gathered by the ever expanding city and in spite of containing the notorious Avalon Asylum, the grove always retained its own enigmatic charm. This was what I want to share with you."

Passing through another archway into a cottage, picking up baskets and continuing out to the orchard, Regina linked her arm through Emma's as other couples fanned out and lead her to her favourite part of the orchard, a corner where the trees clustered together in a wild fashion.

"Why is coming here a yearly tradition?" Emma asked.

"During my residency at MARH, I was working all the time and so very tired. I felt loose, frayed at the edges, never knowing if I was awake or asleep. One day, delirious, I rented a car and just drove. I was dreamlike, drifting in a haze," Regina reached up and picked off the lowest branches, "I woke up in my apartment three days later to the overwhelming scent of apples. My memory was disjointed, but I felt human again. So, every year I come back. It reminds me of how hard I worked, and also how I shouldn't work until I fall apart."

Emma climbed up a ladder they came too and into the tree, scaling out onto one of the borough's, stretching for the roundness at the top before her voice drifted down to Regina, "This place gives you yourself."

"Yes," Regina whispered catching the apple Emma dropped down, and positioned herself for more, grateful Emma understood the deeper reason beyond the explanation given.

As the light crested into morning Regina and Emma gradually filled their baskets while slowly walking back to the cottage shop next to the parking lot. Keeping the wicker baskets and picking up a mixed case of Locust Grove Brewery Cider, they relaxed back into the car as it slipped over the gravel drive and out to the road. A Thermos of coffee was waiting on the seat for them.

"Coffee?"

"Of course."

"Perfect," Emma leaned in for a kiss.

"Yes, you are," Regina followed Emma as she withdrew, seeking another kiss.

"Where we going?"

"Not saying."

"Why not?" Emma pouted.

"You've ideas you want to follow up on. You don't care where we're going, just how much time we have."

"Yes," Emma's kiss burned her up, yet Regina was happy to languish within these kisses as the car sleeked through traffic, winding the hour around busy mid-morning traffic, too pull up to Asceline. Regina and Emma bounded out of the car and into the book store, as old as the city.

Walking in the heavy wooden oak doors propped open by a stack of old encyclopaedias, inside were three split levels, half-elevated from each other, stairs often hidden by stacks of books with mismatched jumbles of chairs hidden throughout the store.

Emma looked around at the overstuffed shelves, pathways swaying between stacks piled where the shelves had no more room. Emma breathed deeply of the smell of fresh new books and the musty warmth of second hand love traded for more, she let go of Regina and walked up to the second tier, over to the music section and knelt to begin sifting through sheet music.

Regina followed her, "You've been here before."

"Not really a Briar kind of person." Emma hadn't even looked up, focused on the box in front of her, smiling at Regina's statement, "but yes."

"Slightly judgemental?" Regina laughed soft, noticing the evasive non-answer. Briar District, next to Clovia Hills, had sprouted from the same wealth pervading both areas. Briar is full of bespoke shops, cafe's and by-laws forbidding chain stores, with wide, tree lined immaculate streets and patrolled by private security.

Emma looked up at Regina, beautifully statuesque, "You hadn't been to the places I took you. Harper's is a place you would've gone, located such as it is in Ianthe?"

"Point taken."

"Okay, but why here?"

"When we were all at university, Mulan worked here. This became our hangout, I guess. We all practically lived here. Maleficent learned how to make coffee here on this clunky old machine. Cruella started her passion for architecture here."

"A home when you had none?"

"Yes," Regina still astounded at the understanding between them.

"I'm going to look," Regina waved her hand and walked off, at once wanting to know what Emma wasn't telling.

Emma turned back to the pile, separating what she wanted from the rest. Asceline was quiet, except for the shuffling of customers and the soft sch-sch sound of books rubbing against each other. The time ticked by, twisting with the sunlight twinkling throughout the window.

"You done?" Regina found Emma curled in one of the stuffed sofa's by the window, reading with a neat stack of books next to her.

"Yes. No. Mostly." Emma laughed and shrugged, "It's a book store."

"Asceline means of the moon."

"Really?" Emma stood, picking up the stack.

"Variations on a theme I am rapidly coming to enjoy," Regina replied as they walked to the counter, paid and took their purchases out to the sunshine.

"Medical texts? Old ones?" Emma questioned

"Yes, I collect them, they remind me of a time when we started to learn and develop and grow," she shrugged, "Asceline stocks them."

"Awesome. Its beautiful to know where one comes from."

The car sat waiting and Emma handed her bag over to the chauffeur, but Regina stopped her from getting in, "We walk from here."

"OK," Emma liked her arm through Regina's as they walked up the street, "We're staying in Briar?"

"Absolutely. Lunch."

Regina led them around the corner and up a few blocks and inside Karaleigh's, sitting in a booth overlooking the artificially constructed park and pond, encompassed on all sides to exclude the outside. The meal already organised by Regina, in her meticulous planning of this day for Emma. Wine poured by silent the wait staff, melting into the background. Emma wound words around Regina, delicately creating worlds aloud as food appeared and became part of their delight.

"Why here? I thought you haven't been here?" Emma asked.

"True. I haven't, however I wanted to start our own place," Regina shrug smiled, all of the sudden shy, "I wanted some place that's ours, I guess."

"And you picked here?"

"Exactly, because I picked somewhere that I would pick..." Regina searched around for words to makes sense, "I wanted a new memory for us, but also I wanted one that is ours. I picked it, yes, I know we are connected to our pasts, and this place seemed connected to Snow and Charm for you, which I thought would be good..."

Emma is swept up into the brutal beauty of Regina's gift, "Thank you."

"Our time is up. We've another event," Regina stood and offered her hand. Emma took it, to follow Regina to the car. The trip was short as it pulled up to the Ellysion.

"Here?" Emma said.

"Yes. We need to change," Regina exited and led Emma up to the penthouse, clothes already laid out for them. The afternoon set in, daylight angled from the side of the sky.

"Regina. This is a dress. These shoes match."

"Yes, it is. Yes, they do. Now put it and them on."

"But..."

"Emma. My day. Put the clothes on."

Emma looked at the dress and noticed the designer label. She sighed and changed. Emma took the hand Regina again offered as she lead them back down and out to the car. The car journey is quick and took them to the cities ballet company, housed in the distinct Ysabelle Theatre, designed and constructed over a hundred years previously after the last one burnt to cinder in a riot. Walking into the lobby, they were handed a glass of champagne.

"Thank you," Emma took the glass offered by the stem, unsure whether the dress or the company was making her feel uncomfortable, "the ballet?"

"Yes. This is a co-sponsored charity benefit."

"Really? For what Charity?"

"Humanities and Arts City Youth Program."

"Excellent," Emma scanned the crowd until her eyes met Ingrid, also with a glass of champagne in one hand and in mid-conversation when she spotted Emma.

"Excuse me," muttered Ingrid as she left her date and walked over to her former foster daughter.

"Emma."

"Ingrid," Emma, unsurprised, yet unsettled, she is here, levelled her voice flat.

"I did not..." Ingrid struggled to pull herself back in "...think I would see you here. If I remember, you said ballet is pretentious?"

"Well, um..." Emma had not seen her since she left her care at 18, refusing to be taken here under Ingrid's care and therefore never seen the ballet live, "Regina?"

Regina turned from the conversation she was having to find Emma and Ingrid staring at each other, tense with a mixture of pain and unspoken history, Emma saying "I believe that you two know each other. Ingrid, Regina. Regina, Ingrid."

Turning to each other, Regina smiling as she said, "Ingrid, how are you?"

"Fine, thank you. You?" Emma tensed as the damages from her past spiked in her mind, twisting against the core of herself.

"Well." Regina felt the tenseness radiating from Emma, exchanged the champagne glass from one hand to the other and slipped her arm protectively around Emma, who leaned flush against her body, shifted her own arm across her body and laced her fingers into Regina's hand upon her hip.

She was used to people scrutinising her, watching her, judging her. Regina's arm didn't move, slipped further around her and in spite of her fluctuation, in spite of herself, she felt Regina's warmth, releasing against her arm, the tightness is stitched into her soul.

"You two know each other?" Ingrid, observing the intimate movement between the two intensely, feeling the quiet, solid love, the type that required serious hard quarantine and felt acutely at a serious tactical advantage.

"Yes. She is my date," Emma's voice was clipped.

"Congratulations. Excuse me," Ingrid, a surprised look shuffled quickly over her face before she nodded her head and returned to her date.

"What was that about?" Regina asked Emma with a bewildered look on her face.

"I'll tell you later," Emma is shaking ever so slightly, "don't worry about it."

"Emma..." Regina leaned in, pulling Emma's body tighter, whispering in her ear, "Are you okay?"

"Regina, really. This is your day," Emma still looking perturbed, but made a visible effort to smile, "I'm good."

Regina continue to whisper into her ear, "Okay. Please don't look so worried," and before she realised the words tumbled out her mouth, "I love you."

Emma's breath hitches in her chest, shuddering through her body, mixing with the unsettled vibrating air around her, "Why?"

"Because."

"Why?" Insistent, eyes on fire.

"I love you because of so many reasons..." her voice is tight at the challenging, yet soft, "...your actions and compassion..." she leans in for a kiss, "...let me love you..."

Emma felt the words from Regina's mouth wash over her. Although she heard these words from Killian, Ruby, Snow and Charm before, this was different, made her feel naked, exposed, terrified and warm. Emma wasn't ready, not with Ingrid staring hostility in their direction. Regina's arm remained wrapped around her as emotion jostled her until she gathered herself back in, her chest constrict under all of this weight.

Regina felt the trembling stop along her arm as Emma relaxed enough in her arms to smile. Focusing on Regina's touch as she looked around Ysabelle theatre. She could not allow Ingrid to throw this day off balance.

The ballet is evocative and reminded her of the delicate balance within life, both physical and emotional. The balance between Regina and herself. The balance lost between herself and Ingrid. Walking out to the street, Regina, remembering the same look from the opera waited for Emma to come back to her. In the last of the afternoon, sleek black cars were lined two deep outside of the theatre.

Regina drew Emma away from the babbling crowd, resting flush against each other, as the traffic swelled and was slow, but finally they passed through the worst and exited onto a street unfamiliar to Emma. Emma settled enough into herself to have relaxed and is able to relinquish herself into Regina.

"Regina?"

Regina leaned in as soon as she spoke, pulled her close to kiss her. Even after all this long day for Regina, Emma smelled like fire and home. Pulling back, she whispered against their lips, "we're going to Clovia Fields for the charity dinner."

"Clovia Fields?" Emma sat up as the car stopped against the curb.

"A private event for the organisers of the charity ballet," Regina sighed, leading her out of the car and into the building, continuing into the ballroom, whispering against Emma's ear conspiratorially, "Come on, before we're noticed."

Emma let Regina lead her away, around the edge of the ballroom, and though a service door, past busy kitchens and up service stairs to the building roof. Regina led her around the industrial clutter and various structures to the sunset side and stopped.

The sun was blurred into the ground, giving this city an opaque orange burgundy light. Regina tilted her head until she saw Emma's face, her lips slightly parted and full of colour in the light.

"It looks so...undecided from here," Emma said.

"Yes, I guess."

"Not like this morning, when it was open and hard."

"The giving and the dying of the light is such a powerful perspective," Regina murmured.

"Is that what this is? Here?"

"Yes," the sunset noise is dirty, contrasted against the breezy peace of the roof, "we saw dawn together. I wanted us to see it fade as well."

Emma de-tangled their hands and stood against Regina, shifting her arm around her waist, "You mean the sweetest things."

"Thank You."

"There is nothing like this light. Yesterday, it would have been different. Tomorrow, it could be more orange or less purple or something. Thank you for sharing this one with me. This only one with me."

Regina twisted her around, kissing her ferociously, emotionally tumultuously after a day like today, she whispered against Emma's lips, "I mean the sweetest things?"

"Yes," Emma kissed quickly, "absolutely, and I hope you can negotiate your way out in this darkness."

"I'm sure I've the light to do so..." Regina kissed her again, breathing in Emma's scent, "...getting hungry?"

"Eh. Thirsty."

"Okay. Come." Regina led them back down the way they come.

"You know all the sneaky ways."

Regina snorted "Only in places I want to. Not, you know, hidden art installations in abandoned buildings."

"Yes, but the food here is better."

The audience, and ever so slowly, performers entered the space, filling it with voices and conversation. Regina, a member of Clovia Fields and on the board of both the City Ballet and the Humanities and Arts City Youth Program, is elated to show off Emma.

Dinner is noisy and exciting, full of company, food and dancing. The names of everyone Regina introduced her blurred across Emma's brain, making her feel fuzzy. Her dress and gloves tightened around her like the wealthy members of the club.

"Emma..." Regina nudged her, "...would you like to dance?"

"Please..."

Regina lead her out to the dance floor and into an effortless waltz. Six songs later, Emma withdrew from Regina's arms and indicated she needed water. Following, Regina asked, "How did you learn how to waltz?"

"Charm insisted," Emma ordered them both drinks, and handed Regina's to her.

"Why?"

"No idea. She just took us all. We were all living apart. Belle already with Beast in the basement, Ruby went to an independent community school, Killian and I were in specialist school, I think it became something we could all do together."

"Bet she loved it when Killian became a stripper."

"Don't think she cared, as long as we look good at the Smash Punch Gala. Killian and I learnt some sort of dancing when we were kids."

Regina, placing her empty glass back on the table, took Emma back to the dance floor. Night had fully formed when they wandered out, glowing with the majority of the evening on the dance floor. The car waiting for them as Regina whispered into Emma's ear, inhaling her delectable scent, "There is one more thing to do."

"Okay," Emma was tired, yet she did not want to give up this day as she allowed Regina to seat her into the car again.

After the deafening noise at the dinner, both remained quiet throughout the twenty minute journey, finally pulling up to the cities Natural History Museum's service entrance. Regina and Emma walked up to the door, guarded by a suited, gloved attendant.

"Nyx 256," Regina said as the door squeaked open.

"Natural History Museum?" Emma smiled at Regina choosing this, "Nyx?"

"Another secret club. We get access to many things," Regina laughed.

"Secret club?" Emma looked wearily at Regina as they moved inside.

"No, No...just access..." Regina said, hearing the edge in Emma's voice, "One of those wealthy privilege things..."

Emma elbowed Regina at the jest, "scandalously privileged. So, reasons for here?"

"Simple love, really. A compliment to Asceline, I guess. When I wanted solitude and a sense of gravitas to where I belong. That all things are not lost."

"Life will remain even when you do not?"

"Stop reading my mind so precisely," Regina smiled, struggling with how delightful they are together.

It is another place Emma had not been or explored, however with Regina as her tour guide, she was led through the shaded, subtle lighting baroque maze of a building. Emma enraptured in seeing a history that is not her own, trinkets of cultures as dead to this one as to hers.

Instead of giving her a sense of loss, it gave her a sense of comfort that everything dies, but what we leave behind can flourish. In spite of the interest in looking at everything, fatigue rapidly settling over both of them. Night crept around midnight when at last they headed out.

"This was perfect, Regina."

"But we're ready to go?"

"Yes."

"Then there is one last surprise."

"Regina..." but her hand was taken to be swiftly led back into the car, silent in traffic. Emma nestled into Regina, exhausted by a full day, manufactured light blending through the glass.

Their town-car pulled under a curved annex and the door opened. Emma stepped out to the doors of the Ectoria Hotel and as she felt Regina step out her behind her, she turned with a raised eyebrow and smirk.

"I still have until six," Regina shrugged with a suggestive wink.

"You better lead the way, then."

Regina organised for her assistant to check them in and take their bags to the room, only requiring her to pick up their key. Emma gently moved her fingers to caress Regina's wrist in the elevator, gently rotating her body, opening a space only to close it again, falling into this quietness that became a yell.

There elegant room melted around them as clothing fell to the floor. Emma moved against a flexed body, brushing her lips over hard nipples pushing against Regina's laced bra, the movement deliberately taunting and wound her hands around Regina's back, tugging the hooks holding them away. Unclasping while pushing her against the chair, Emma pressed herself onto Regina's lap, flinging the bra against the wall, running her nails over the curve of her stomach until she reached the crest of her hips, the sharp decent caused Regina's sharp intake of breath as Emma tasted rain in the sunshine, feeling the infinite strung between them.

* * *

Sitting in the early morning light, pale filtering refracted by the wall to floor windows, lighting Emma's pink and purple hair spiked in a thousand different directions, floppy and reflective of bed. Room service coffee was steaming up from their cups, "What's with Ingrid?"

Emma looked startled before she frowned and laced her fingers around her cup, shivering against its warmth. Regina waited patient. Silence drifted until Emma raised her eyes to meet Regina's, "We've a complicated history."

"That much is obvious."

"I told you when Killian and I were placed in foster care..." Emma stopped, her face in a look Regina could not read, "...I was placed with Ingrid. She wanted to adopt me. I said no."

She stopped and made no indication she would continue. Regina left off pursuing further information, sensing this was deep pain she would eventually be told. She willed herself to work harder at making her feel this way, including extending there progress over the last twenty four hours. Regina led them to the shower before checking out. Emma returned to her own apartment to change and head to work.

Emma stood in her kitchen fumbling against the crumbs left by Killian and Robin. The apartment felt different, abstract, along with the changes rapidly evolving within her. It is rare when she came back here, in-between work, Smash Punch and Regina. She is feeling exposed, like she could move on, could release her demons, that living and being alive are vastly different things.

* * *

Emma, hoping to see Snow for advice about Ingrid, walked into Granny's and over to her seat at the end of the counter. It is just after three in the morning. Snow walked in shortly after, dumping her bag and pouring them coffee.

"Emma," Snow noticed Emma twitching,"Spill."

"Ingrid was at the ballet," Emma said, sipping at her thick coffee. Ingrid is the biggest confusion and regret, her first lesson in compassion and consequences, current behaviour learned from old behaviour, how history creates the present. She wanted to fix a situation she still found difficult to understand.

"Oh. Well. We did miss her at the opera. And what did you tell Regina?" It as astonishing to watch the differing way the madness of love has shaped Emma, fractures her to rearrange what remains in far better order.

"That we have history. She didn't pressure, but she kind of want to know."

"How was she?" Snow still remembered the woman's desperate pain, the unsure obliviousness of Emma. Snow is blessed, having Charm and Belle. But in truth, they also have Emma and Ruby, always had.

When, at 18, Emma moved from Ingrid's to the terrible, tiny place in Zvyah, Charm wanted to buy her an apartment, or at the very least bring her back to their own. Snow, with her logic and beautiful voice, brought her back from the ledge, understanding how they needed to find a way to mend their own cracks and why they needed to prove themselves. Snow made it clear their home is always open for the daughters Charm and her collected.

"Still upset. Hurt. Angry. Confused."

"It's been three years. So you think it's time you gave her closure?"

Emma tensed, "Closure?"

"Baby girl. You have seen enough to know. When you know better, you should do better. Release her. You may not have wanted what she offered, but that's no longer an excuse."

"I know that," Emma shrugged, smiling ruefully, "I guess we feel unfinished."


	7. Lake St Clair

VII Lake St. Clair

"Why is it so early," Emma mumbled as she relinquished to being awake, "We weren't out that late."

"I think it was what we did when we got back..."

"Why, Regina," Emma rolled over, smiling salaciously, kissing the warm instep of Regina's neck, running her hand tauntingly over the hip underneath her fingertips, feeling Regina's heart beat raise beneath her pursuing lips.

Regina moaned soft and raised her hip, responding to Emma's insistent invocation heating her body. Unfurling to each other, whispering truths between moans, drifting further into merging their bodies until an alarm shrilled across the room.

Emma shifted as Regina's body slowly twisted away and pushed herself from the bed to attend the beeper. Emma sighed and moved off the bed and into the bathroom, pushing the control panel starting the shower. By the time the water relaxed her frustrated muscles, Regina joined her.

"I've been called in," kissing Emma on the shoulder, running her arms around her.

"Okay," Emma smiled at the slippery touch, "know when you'll be off?"

"Not at this point, will call you when I can?"

"Absolutely. Call Beast if I don't pick up."

"What are you doing Monday?"

"No plans."

"I've an idea and three days that I'm off and not on call. Think that you could get away?"

"Yes, most likely, I'll check with Beast. Why?"

"Excellent..." Regina mumbled against her neck, "...road trip."

"Where are we going?"

"Can Ruby, Killian and Robin get time off?"

"Where? Yeah, probably, why, what about them?" Emma smiled, turning within the embrace.

"The manor. I know Killian and Ruby are important to you. There's no reason we cannot all be…its not a choice between them and me. It's felt like that lately, you've been balancing the scale between us. It shouldn't have to be a choice."

Emma considered what she is saying, "If its a balancing act, I've crashed."

"So. All of us. Three days off?"

"Okay, sounds perfect," Emma said, stepping out of the shower, and grabbing a towel, followed by Regina. She loved the overnight trip they had taken, loved the peace of the Manor. She wanted to see Maleficent, Cruella and Mulan again. Killian, Emma knew, would love it too.

Dressing and walking out of the penthouse to the street, a car waited for Regina. She kissed Emma before reminding her, "Call you when I finish?"

"I'm on at midday. Ruby and I'll be having dinner after if you wanted to come."

"Okay, I'll keep it in mind. I'm not sure I'll be up for much."

"Regina…"

"I don't know what I am facing yet. Say hi to Ruby?"

"Will do. I'm on the same shift tomorrow. After?"

"Yes. See you around 9ish?"

"Yes," Emma leaned in kissing Regina before she slid into the car and glided into traffic.

Emma walked up the street, aiming for the monorail. The grey sky casting steel blue throughout the mid-morning habitation of the cement streets. She did have enough time to go home but its easier and simpler to change at Pacer.

She skipped three stops on the monorail and come out onto the street Pacer dominated, lucky for always keeping extra clothes at work. The clothes she kept at Regina's were more relaxed and comfortable, incompatible for Pacer. She slipped down the side of Pacer and continued on to Granny's to gather something to eat. Emma took her reserved seat in the corner of the bar and pulled her mobile out to see a text waiting from Regina, "I love you."

"What are you smiling about?"

Emma lifted her head, "Hi Snow. Nothing," as she slipped her mobile back into her bag.

"Regina?"

"Yep..."

"Would you like to eat today?"

"Okay, Okay," Emma laughed, hands up in defeat, "She's invited Ruby, Killian and Robin to the manor."

"To the place she took you on for the weekend getaway at Lake St Clair?"

"Yes," Emma flushed slightly, recalling the feeling of peace at the lake mansion, "She did. But just...you know, overnight, left on Saturday, came back Sunday."

"Family dinner time, I think," Snow smiled at the buoyant energy emanating from Emma. "I'll bring her to the next one?" Emma sighed, "but, be gentle. She may've met you all, but I'm not sure she is ready for all of us together."

"That should do just fine," Snow handed Emma a brown bag with sandwiches.

"Thanks," Emma skipped out and back to Pacer to organise her time off with Beast before shift.

* * *

"So, where we eating?" Ruby asked

"Close to home?"

"Sahntyna it is then. No Regina tonight?"

"She's still at work. Some complicated case," Emma shrugged, "On that note, would you like to come Lake St. Clair on Monday? Three day getaway."

"To that mansion she has out there?"

"Yup, Regina, Killian, Robin, you and me."

"Is she crazy?" Ruby snorted slipping among the meagre crowd and into the carriage, "Why?"

"Because Regina wants to. Killian is my brother and you are my closest friends and I've been neglecting you. I want us all to at least be familiar if not friends."

"This sounds like a serious attempt at integration."

"Yes. Snow said I have to bring her to the next family dinner."

"I'd love to. I'll call Beast."

"Already did. You're good."

"Sneaky, assuming I'd say yes."

Emma shrugged, smiled and shifted out of the carriage, down the stairs, and towards the neon glow of Sahntyna. Walking in they saw Killian and Robin in the back corner booth, midway through their meal.

"What are you doing here?"

"Looks like the trouble's arrived," Killian said around a mouthful of paella.

"Trouble was already here," Ruby pushed him over in the booth and picked up some chips.

Emma sat next to Robin and pulled sauce drenched chips from his plate, "how do you feel about a long weekend away in Lakes St Clair? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday."

"Long weekend? Regina's place?"

"Yes, Regina's place, Westwood Manor," smiling at her oldest friend, "Simply a few days away."

"All of us five? Sounds suspiciously delightful. How we getting there?"

"Regina has a car," Emma finished the chips and started fishing around for Killian's.

"She doesn't really know us….hey, grab that waitress, as you ate all of my chips," Robin sighed. Emma shrugged and called the roller skate wearing waiter over and ordered extra food for herself and Ruby.

Killian looked at Emma. Watching her as he fractured subtly, his light flickering in the shadows of darkness. The happiness pervading her was alien. He rapidly became overwhelmed with old fears, encouraged by the memories of the voices screaming during those first nights.

Emma stood, always, to face the world and adapt to it. She had, chameleon like, adjusting to exploit favour, learnt how to remain unseen in a city with too many watchful eyes, how to manipulate the weakness in others to her advantage. Ruby was the first person she met she had not been able to bend to her will, and this made them friends.

Killian searched for the power he felt on their last night at home, a pervasive sense of destiny and failed when, here, separated when placed into care, all fate was off. While Emma evolved and grew into her power, Killian relinquished his too a world intent on defeating him.

He failed to thrive, stayed too long in Emma's shadow, siphoning her power and protection for comfort. Looking past his own turmoil, Regina seemed perfect to Killian when he felt her as keenly as Emma obviously did. The quartet sat deep into Wednesday night, highlighted in the neon glare.

* * *

Emma and Regina lay in the living room eating Chinese out of cardboard containers, the muted glow of the television flicking light to the room, "Why are you really taking all of us?"

"Because connections shouldn't be disregarded. Killian, Ruby and you've too much of a history and I want too much of a future. Belle was, of course, invited, yet Beast mentioned that she declined. Too far away."

Emma sighed contently, "Yes. Okay. That makes sense, I guess. But 3 days in the Lake's District?"

"You've been spending time with me at the expense of your friends. No reason why we cannot all complete the circle. It'll be fine. And fun."

"But…." Emma struggled against the inclusion of her love and her life, failing to understand how far she ventured into this love that she was renouncing the life she fought to have made, "...Regina."

"Emma, it is simply just…We. Us. Our." Regina smiled, shrugged and nodded as she reached out her hand to trail it down Emma's face, "You are here. I do not fear for anything."

"Regina..."

"That first week, you know, when I saw you at three every morning?"

"Hmm."

"What did you do those three days in-between that and the date on Monday?"

"I worked the Winter Solstice Festival."

"Played at the festival?"

"Yes. Celebration of life and death. Ruby and I played. We also play the Summer Solstice Festival."

"What did you play?"

"Violin."

"Was this for Smash Punch?" for by now Regina knew Emma did nothing without charitable purpose.

"Yes, it was. Always."

"Why are you with me?"

Emma sat up, shifted to look in Regina's eyes, "What do you mean?"

Regina tugged gently, pulled her back into her, "You do everything with intent. I seem a little off plan is all."

Emma relented to Regina's persistence and laid her head back on Regina's shoulder, "You are definitively off plan. But much of my life here has been off plan. Actually being here at all is in fact extremely off plan," Emma snuggled in as Regina wrapped her arms tighter, "but you broke me out of being so dedicated to everything else but myself, I guess."

"This is a good thing?" Regina murmured against her temple.

"No. Of course not. Change is an awful, terrible thing..."Emma squirmed in Regina's embrace as she giggled, "Why do you want to know?"

"I was just thinking if I hadn't come in to find Beethoven, or come back at three in the morning, or asked you for the first date. How terrible it would it have been not to have you?"

Emma shifted her head up and kissed Regina, "You are incredibly sweet you are."

"You need to know how important you are to me, how serious I am about you. I love you."

"Regina..." Emma's voice obscure as she leaned in, kissing her briefly again before returning her head to the perfect space in the crest of Regina's neck.

"If only you could see yourself how I see you, you would see how beautiful you are," Regina tenderly continued, caressing Emma's back, exquisitely exploring all of her details.

"Are we getting there the same way?" Emma softly spoke, feeling overwhelmed as the pieces final came together, loving the soft touch caressing her skin, gentle as whispering wings from a butterfly.

"Yes. They can all stay here the night before or we can pick them up on the way through. When are you all working?" Regina accepted the diversion.

"Ruby and I get off at three am, Killian and Robin at six."

"So, your all going to sleep all the way there?"

"Probably," Emma smiled, "I'll tell them to dump their bags here so we can just pick them up on the way out," mumbling as she finished her food.

"Makes sense," Regina stood and grabbed the empty food containers, Emma stumbling to help, before slipping into their bathroom for their evening ritual. Emma's favourite was the shower, carnivorous space she could do as she willed, pursued flesh exposed, water causing slippery bodies to flush together.

Finished, Emma pulled the blankets up and snuggled into Regina's body, pressing her lips against bare skin, "I never let myself have a spare moment. Ever. I couldn't. If I had one single second, I would think and then I would've fallen apart."

"Was it that bad?"

"No. But I could never forgive myself. Killian refused to speak. Gretchen was overwhelming. By then, everything had fallen apart and twisted into each other, warped how I felt about everything. I rejected opportunities out of spite. I..." Regina felt the warmth of tears collecting in the hollow of her throat, "I couldn't reject you."

Regina felt the chasm snap, breaking her wide open and spilling out of her. Emma's voice is heavy as she said, "I cared until I couldn't. Ruby noticed, pushed me into confronting how I didn't negotiate my reality. And then there was you. Caring. I had always chosen to be busy because it was easier. Until you offered me...you, I guess."

Regina felt hot breath tickling across her throat and she swallowed hard before saying, "I always fought everything. You made me different. For you, that first time I saw you, I wanted you and wanted to fight that I felt that. Instead, insanely so, I submitted to pursuing this. I was terrified, knowing that you could say no. But, here you are, a revelation."

Emma shuddered, surrendering to this feeling of improbable, decadent love, "You are my dream before the dawn, yet still you stay gold with the rising of the sun."

Regina leaned in, drifting into a kiss as light as heaven, weaponising this sentimentality held between them. Emma leaned forward, meeting her lips and falling deeper into their kiss. Emma realising that better than being loved is loving, and encompassing them both in words she could not say but show.

Trembling, she kissed down Regina's neck, across skin stretching in pleasure and her tongue began to trace lace, teasing the wetness soaking through. Whimpering drifted down to Emma, encouraging her exploration, her lips burned down Regina's body until she was blooming beneath her. Moving up just a couple of inches, her lips murmured across the ribbon trimmed pantie line as Regina shivered when her teeth made contact. Emma peeled down the lace, pulling them away from the body she desired and kissed her way back up the leg to bury her face in luscious sweet taste of Regina.

* * *

Anticipation compressed the next three days into laughter filled fun. At the end of their shift, Ruby and Emma took the town car Regina insisted on sending for them to her apartment, where they played games, too excited to sleep until Regina woke by alarm and dragged herself over to the excited friends, "Morning Girls."

"Morning. Shower?" Emma asked.

Regina vaguely nodded, the alarm still buzzing around in her head. Emma nodded at Ruby and went to shower and dress with Regina but was quick enough to head back to the kitchen to prepare breakfast burrito, easy to take in the car.

"Hay, R,use the bathroom through there."

"Blue room?"

"Yup."

"Kay, thanks."

They fumbled through the rest of the getting ready before the three went down to the apartments basement car-park, the car already stacked with their bags. Regina, driving, asked Emma for directions to Malaree's and pulled up just after six, the car full of Ruby and Emma's energy.

Killian and Robin scrambled into back seats and collapsed against the back rests, "Well, that's one shift I'm happy to leave behind."

"That bad?"

"No one good goes to a strip club on a Sunday night."

"Ew."

"Yup."

The sun shone off the purple river. Raptor City was built hard against a river twenty three kilometres from an ocean. The water flowed from the deep heart of the country, hidden tablelands and cavernous underground caves. The last three kilometres of Violet River were muddy tributaries crossing purple veined swamp trees. There's still no explanation as to why the water threw a violet shade.

They chatted aimlessly enough for half an hour before gradually each one drifted off into an uncomfortable slumber, half slumped against the cool, chilled glass and left Regina driving on alone. The early morning city traffic graduated to the empty silence of country highways. Only a three hour drive, Regina could handle the soft twitches of dreaming friends.

Pulling up to the house into a circled gardened roundabout she tooted the horn. Three bodies collected out of the door with excited smiles, "Regina."

"Mulan," a swift hug, "Maleficent," until, "Cruella," the four of them laughing as Emma stirred with the breeze, struggling against the sleep pulling her underwater. Regina turned back to the car as Emma mumbled "Regina?"

"Hi," Regina walked around the passenger door and pulled it open as Emma slipped out into her arms stretching into the hug under the sunlight, unfurling like a cat. Emma stumbled against Regina as her spine snapped back in and Regina kissed her laughing, overwhelmed at how quickly this beauty has hijacked her heart, scrambled all the signals and rewired her brain.

Emma kissed back, twisting out of her arms to turn into the car, reached over the seat and pushed Ruby, "Hey, G, time to see sunshine."

"Ehhhh," Ruby resisted waking by thumping Killian and Robin.

Emma giggled as she turned back, stretched again before moving to hug the three women, "Ladies."

"Emma," three voices spoke in unison, laughing, pointing at the car, "You did that on purpose."

Robin crawled out after Ruby while Killian, leaning against Robin, is jarred awake as he hit the seat. He stumbled from the car, stretching out his arms and stamping his feet awake. Emma turned from the women and gestured at them, "Ruby, Killian, Robin."

Turning in recognition of their names, Emma said, "Mulan, Cruella, Maleficent, and yes, I did."

The eight stood silent for a moment, shaking off sleep and excitement, unknown elements with the love for Regina and Emma stringing threads between all of them.

"Hi," all smiling at each other awkwardly.

"Let's get those bags in," Cruella said.

Ruby stretched following her to the boot, replying, "Sure, as long as it gets us out of this sun."

Emma, distracted by Regina, turned to say, "Did someone say bags?"

"Yes," Mulan moved to the back of the car, the rest swirling around to the back end while Regina released the catch. Ruby, Emma, Killian and Robin grabbed their own bags as Mulan, Carol and Cruella extracted the shopping bags.

"Ruby, guys, come with me. I'll show you to your rooms, as long as you all don't go back to sleep," Regina said.

"Okay, but we get to eat soon, right?" Killian smiled.

"Yup," Emma laughed, "that burrito was lucky it took you this far."

"Silence," Killian swung his bag playfully towards Emma, "for we need sustenance."

"Well, then you better follow me quickly," Regina took Killian and Robin to their room in the right wing of the third floor and showed Ruby to hers across the hall, and after confirming they all remembered the way back down, left them.

"I will see you all downstairs," as she led Emma on to the left wing of the hall suite.

Emma put her bags down, Regina embraced her immediately, knowing Emma's precocity for waking up, "You okay?"

"Hmmm. Yes." Emma squeezed tighter, melting into the warmth, the stillness between them changed, mutated against their silence, drifting to places both of them could inhabit. Peaceful, Emma thought, peace she had never encountered, at least not in this way.

"Emma. What is it?"

"Nothing, really," Emma buried her face into Regina's neck, "I like it here."

Unsure of where she meant in her arms or at the manor, Regina's voice soft, imbued with love, asked, "Hungry?"

"I guess," Emma gently kissed the pulse beating under Regina's skin as she drew back.

"So am I," Regina reached out for Emma's hand, entwining their fingers.

She knew how completely monumental her love for Emma is, that she desired her terrifyingly so, desperately so, and they are in a place they could both afford to show their feelings, where she could exhibit her devotion. She still feels love is a terribly inaccurate representation of how she feels, "Let's go."

Walking down the stairs, holding comfort with each other and smiling at the raucous laughter drifting from the kitchen as the group attempted to make sandwiches. Regina and Emma joined, smelling the multi-layered scents of home.

Emma tightened her grip on Regina's hand, feeling the gravity of finding her home among the wreckage of her life. The eight of them together combined over food freshly made. Cruella, Maleficent and Mulan, this iconic apex triumvirate, melted into such a flawless symphony together and even Regina in awe of them. Their relationship created a pervasive sense of calm beauty that infiltrated the guests, diffused their demeanour.

The day expanded around them as much as inside of them ans they wandered the groves, and swam in the dual temperatured lake, in-between the sun warmed upper layers and chilled, icy lower layers, eight bodies bobbing up and down, voices and splashes intermingled in the open air. They all flowed together around the day, enjoying the expanse of the house and the lake while the world spun outside of them.

The daylight of the second found Emma walking the path out to the lake, Ruby to the forest and Killian and Robin ventured to Miller's Inn. Regina sat on the couch, over stuffed and soft, confident, relaxed in love. Cruella, lying across the sofa, kicked out beyond the full satisfaction of lunch, turned her head to the side and looked over to Regina, "She's still delightful."

"I know."

"They're young."

"Yes. But ravaged enough for all of us."

"Robin seems the odd one out."

"Yes. But only because he is not as mangled as the rest of us."

"Probably," Cruella laughed, "you two are insufferably sweet together."

Regina looked out towards the lake, contemplating, "She's filled that blank space. I don't know how else to describe it...Everything thats me has an exceptionally exaggerated value. My education, my wealth. She is this enigma, the single entity not exaggerated. Her loss would be so extravagantly fatal. All else blurs and crumbles into insignificance. She shines against all of those dark places I carry in my heart. She is why I wake up in the morning. I think of her constantly, even when we're together. "

"I can see it. You are worthy, you know, you are enough. Even if she is part of some secret hipster criminal underworld," Cruella leaned back after shuffling the pillows behind her.

"They certainly look that way, don't they," Regina laughed, shrugging against the emotion overwhelming her, her voice low "...I guess we're so unexpected."

"It usually is. No one expects it."

"How did you get it?" even though Regina saw it happen and they had had this conversation before, perspective always a fabulous thing.

"I didn't. I was the last to know. Maleficent was..." Cruella waved her hands around, "Maleficent noticed our love in the silence, noticed before either of us our potential together, how our movements sang to each other and bound us all together, love deeply forged. Maleficent raised Mulan to us, extending our enclave for the three of us. Maleficent was certain, quelled any anxiety we had about a trilogy of love. She wrapped us three together, enfolding all of us together. There is nothing else we wanted, settled as we are into desire, love weaved through us, passions pursued, our tranquillity was…" Cruella sighed, "...Still felt like a surprise. Both times. Now, they would probably say the same, that it was unexpected and a surprise. Yet, here the three of us are. In love. Still."

"I guess," Regina smiled, "You three have always just been."

"No. Us four have always been. Everything else is just surface story. We may be clubbing at our half-century, but we're all finally the people we are meant to be, more solid, cohesive and together."

Ruby left the stone home soon after lunch on this second day, willing herself to walk under the coolness of the canopy. Shades of green over layers of brown and a sedate sense of dampness. A sharp, soft crack behind her made her turn.

"Hi," Maleficent said. She held two baskets in her hand, and offered one out to Ruby, "Interested?"

"Yes," Ruby took the basket, "What are we looking for?"

"Dinner," Maleficent indicated Ruby to follow, walking deeper into the forest.

Almost all of their food is produced at the farm and Maleficent preferred to sell the excess at the farmers market. Cruella created heavenly concoctions from other portions, mixing chilli mushrooms, lime apple preserves and creating tastes they all loved. It was Mulan who knew what she could do, knew these things were definitively marketable.

"How do you know what's okay to eat?"

"I cultivate it."

"OK..." Ruby placed her hand against a trunk and steadied her herself while negotiating the incline.

"Intentionally tilling by creating farm land gives you versatility to grow things not naturally grown, a chance to encourage mutated growth. I choose not to do that. I grow what can and what should be grown here. We've an intentionally small production, as we never wanted to be a commercial farm."

"You're popular for a non-commercial venture."

"It wasn't the plan we wanted to be self-sufficient," Maleficent paused and turned, looked at the stone manor, the centrepiece to this flowing forest bloom, eyes unfocused.

Only Maleficent seemed to remember where all the growth is and when to extract the delicacies, only she attuned to the play of the seasons. All her life she had been. before continuing, "Some things are grown by allowing the earth it's own time frame, allowing the natural heart to bloom. There is nothing grown here that couldn't find its place in the eaves of trees, in the cracks of the bark, along the boroughs or nestled within the dark, moist dirt fed by decaying leaves."

"Have you always wanted this," Ruby shrugged, gestured around, "wanted to be a gardener?"

She refocused and turned towards Ruby, "I was raised in a mansion by the sea. The salty breeze always followed me, highlighting the ice in my hair and making the hollow colour in my eyes stand out. I was the twelfth generation to live there in a long line of wealthy heritage and breeding. I was meant to be a lawyer, but I was the eight child of an overzealous mother, wanting to make up for an absent, industrialist husband. This became a gift, allowing me to escape the banality of inheriting my family estate and be constrained by legacies of expectations, I don't miss the sea in this forest," Maleficent pulled at a tree root, he voice lost in the breeze, hustling through the trees as Ruby understood she was talking about more than simply the forests, "we wanted our own world. We didn't want the false positive reality offered. We wanted..." Maleficent stopped and shrugged.

Ruby looked at the shadows dancing with the afternoon, softly completed Maleficent's sentiment "...to feel more than what you were told you should feel."

Maleficent looked at Ruby, observed the young, scared face before answering, "Yes. To feel. To know."

"Why here?"

"Regina hasn't said? Can you grab those?" Maleficent pointed to edged mushrooms, spawned in the recess of tree roots.

Ruby climbed up the slight embankment and gently pulled the storm grey cups, sheltering them in the wicker basket. Standing to brush dirt against her pants, she continued along a path set by Maleficent, quickly adding, "She may have told Emma."

"We all met back at school. It was one of those where rich parents leave their children when they become too old to be cute yet to young to be useful. That age where its better to be locked away then to get up to any scandalous behavior," She stopped and kneeled down to pull out buried carrots, thin crystalline green tops shuddering in the breeze.

"My father caused the scandal, drinking at a business function, drove the three hours home, and closer to home then not, hit a local and killed him. He lasted a year, ashamed and broken, before taking his own life. I became a pariah when I returned to school after this, the legacy of my father sent gossip filtering down to school friends. I could never escape my name, not the way I look," Maleficent swallowed, "I am obviously a Xanthe, we all have the same sharp cheekbones, glacial eye colour and ice white hair. It is so much the dominant family trait that my siblings are virtually indistinguishable from each other, to anyone outside the family."

Ruby kept quiet, waiting for the soft cadence of Maleficent's voice to continue, "I was excluded for the first time because of my family rather than included due to it. I was lucky to attend boarding school far enough away to only return to the house during the summer holidays. The four of us were all different. Strange. Excluded somehow. That's how we became friends. What I could do is choose the family I wanted, and I did. From what I can gather, how you, Emma and Killian chose each other. Mutual trauma."

Maleficent delicately reached up and plucked greens from behind bark hollow which, falling to the ground as the protection was no longer needed, landed in a gentle whispered thud before her voice lilted once more, "Cruella came out here, working the summer after graduation. She found this place in ruin and when Regina and I visited, she showed us. The Manor was a devastation, and we all fell in love with it. Cruella stayed and turned this place into what it is. It took me a couple of years to move out here, where I began cultivating the garden. Cruella and I..." Maleficent paused to kneel to the ground and began digging, fingers probing into earth, pulling out beetroot, "In that corner, between those two trunks. Dig there."

Ruby drifted between the trunks and imitating Maleficent, caressed the ground, shifted the dirt around, and began excavating. Maleficent's voice again drifted the divide, as she stood basket in one hand, brushing the excess dirt off with the other, "When you find home, you stay. The grove is down here."

Emma walked barefoot from the house down to the jetty, and swung her feet as she sat at the end. Westwood Manor both busy and delectable in its tranquillity. The natural noise filtered from everywhere around her and it gave her a peace she hadn't felt since Tempenka. She knew she irrevocably lived forward, yet can only remember backwards.

This place was softer, woodier, richer. Tempenka was grassier, drier, duller. Yet both swayed Emma's physical memory triggering each other, the past and the current, shuffling within her like a deck of cards, looping time inside of itself. Westwood Manor stood in stone behind her, blended into the sky, slumbering against the earth.

Mulan slipped down to the jetty and sat next to Emma. Relaxing silence nestled in around the two as they mimicked each others slow arch leg swing. Emma spun her fingers through seeds carried upon the wind, Mulan waited.

"I missed this. There is silence here unlike the city."

"Yes," Mulan looked out upon the lake, watching pale arms unfurling, fingers drifting, "Regina said that you were raised on a farm?"

"Yes," Emma folded her insect thin arms back into her body and rested her hands to her lap, absolute stillness, "I forgot how quiet it is outside of the city. Memory is a funny thing — one insignificant detail can trigger others."

"Bad? Good?"

"Both," Emma remained still, "as everything usually is."

This silence is gentle between them as Mulan asked, "Why does Ruby have those scars?"

"A car accident when she was a child. She exchanged her parents for those," Emma's voice reflected a loss not her own, but one she held for her friend.

"She doesn't have anyone?"

"She has me and Belle, Killian. She has herself." Emma opened her arms and showed her palms, offering what she had, smiling sadly as she did so.

"Yes. She does."

"Like you've Regina," Emma stated, understanding their relationship beyond what could ever be told.

"Of course we do."

Emma sighed, tilted her head, "What is Mulan?"

"I was named after a folk singer."

"Why a folk singer?"

"Regina mentioned you've a connection with names. It means my mother listened to his particular music a lot while she was pregnant with me."

"What about Cruella and Maleficent?"

"Maleficent, after her grandmother. Cruella after her father. Regina said you know what our names mean. How our names are a jigsaw fitting together."

"Okay. Like Robin was named after his father. Yes, names represent the pattern binding us together."

"Why are names so important?"

"Names connected to who you are and to who everyone else is and anchored to both your presence and destiny in this world. My name means Moon of the Celestial Sphere. Killian's means Tree with Deep Earthen Roots, our names balance each others, creating a harmony," Emma subtly shifted her position, "names are the truth of who you are."

"Maleficent's middle name is Celestia."

"I told you. Names connect us to the people we are meant to have in our lives, kind of prophetic," Emma voice lilted with laughter as small pieces filled gaps that had been void for years. These three were as much part of Regina as Regina was of her, all of them orbited the woman in love with moons.

Robin was counting the buildings at Miller's Inn as Killian walked around from the end of the street, calling, "Seriously. This is amazing."

"I know," Killian ran his hand down the stonework, looking at twelve shops standing along a quiet street.

"I've never seen anything like this before."

"Look," Killian pointed at a glass shop as they walked over to the glazed window. A small sign hung in the recessed door with opening hours posted, "there beautiful."

"Who runs it?"

"We can ask," Killian shrugged, "Emma would love that one."

"I guess," Robin turned back to the street, stone cobbled in its short length, "Its like time has stopped."

"Or being regressed. The Manor brings tourists here."

"So cynical," sighed Robin, "for someone so temperamental. The Manor shop is in Kaxis Wood, anyway.""

Killian rolled his eyes, "the shop is closed until four. The café on the corner said it will open at three."

"That is still an hour away. Nothing will open before then."

"Should we wait or walk back?"

"Walk back. We can go for another swim."

Emma walked into the basement to find Mulan's office with an ancient wooden potting desk and an open view to Cruella's basement space, along with a phone, only ever answered during business hours, a laptop and desk lamp. The basement Cruella specifically designed to include all of their work spaces, bottles labelled and stacked into precise rows. Installed refrigerators walled along the left, close to the external stairs, filled with the chilled excess of Maleficent's haul.

The trilogy shifted around each other flawless, building together a boutique, organic empire branded as luxury. Mulan was grateful the organic boxes Maleficent produced for the Atelier along with Cruella's Preserves had exceeded expectations in the wider population. Mulan manoeuvred them in a perfectly placed position of desire being greater than supply, when she limited the products available, and boosted there exclusivity.

Among this consuming work, Mulan noticed the subtle coil of Maleficent's fingers as she constructed a place for her attention, her scent as she leaned in and changed an order. Mulan watched as Cruella, unnaturally petite yet filled a room with her presence, measured and turned simple treats into flavours beyond imagination, evoking landscapes usually sequestered in dreams, she hummed lullabies, a lilted murmur of comfort underneath her breath.

Maleficent and Cruella independently spaced their own endeavours in harmony, shifting together, creating delicacies. All of their products tasted unlike anything else, an orgasm for the palate. Within 10 years, the business provided the household income, and a store opened in Kaxis Wood, enticing the tourist trade with their treats. Mulan would not provide to third party sellers, but did donate four boxes, one for each season, to charity auctions.

"Hi Emma," Mulan looked up from her paperwork, "What's up?"

"Hi Mulan," Emma looked around, "Regina told you anything about Smash Punch?"

"A little," Mulan shuffled some files in the back right corner of her desk, pulling out Regina's email, "She said something about a charity box for a gala?"

"Yes. That would be it." Emma sat in the chair Mulan indicated.

"Regina said she's getting us tickets. We'll bring the box in when we come in. You'll need description and photo of completion seven days before for the program?"

"Excellent. Yes. Photo and content."

"Of course," Mulan annotated the email, included an update for the donation schedule, "Regina said that you are the donation co-ordinator?"

"Yes, first time, actually."

"How you finding it?"

"Good. Usually, I'm more background prep. At most, I may play. This is much more responsibility. I love it."

"You have many items?"

"Yes. We've regular donors. But I've been trying to get a bit more variety, like this is a bonus even if I didn't get it myself," Emma's lopsided smile charmed Mulan.

"Yes, you did. You've learnt the first rule if any event. Connections."

"Yup. Always a bonus. How do you guys choose where your donation goes."

"Mostly pulled out of a bag of applications. Sometimes where here of ones we want to donate to. Like Regina and Smash."

"Thank you."

"You're as special as she says."

Emma scaled various shades of red, "I think you know she's the special one."

"Absolutely," Mulan nodded, "look at the symmetry in that."

An open fire glowed scattered light across main living room. None of the sofa's matched and the pillows an array of splattered colour to hide the stuffing peaking from underneath the buttons. All eight nestled within the safety of the fires yellow glow. Ruby lay across some pillows, smelling the lyrical notes of the room, and observing the relationships snuggled in the room.

Killian and Robin, their youth buzzing with tension, tangled over the floor. Emma and Regina, rested in delightful freshness, coiled in the corner of a sofa. Maleficent, Cruella and Mulan, a triangle shaped trilogy floating beyond the boundaries of each other and curled into contentment beyond measure.

Ruby felt hope, comfort in this future where love could flourish against sharp harsh reality plaguing this group. Eight voices each sang a song, melting into a syrup shaped lullaby.

Emma lay in the large bed, darkness deep with only pale moon illumination. Regina's arm slung over her, snuggled together, sharing the warmth of each other. Emma is so sure at this moment, so certain of their nest she feels an emotion she barely recognises: safe. She is unfamiliar with safe and its unsettling, unmooring her from inhibitions in remembering the past. Even though she is gentle as she shifts out of the bed and walks over to the windows to look out into the world, Regina woke, feeling her absence.

The darkness filtered shadows drifting around the slight figure standing in front of the universe, as black is burned blue with the light of a thousand million tiny fires, leaving trails of light reflected off her skin, she is beyond this realm. The quarter moon cast a ghostly sanguine light. Regina waited for her eyes to adjust as she shifted to sit up. Her soft voice drifted under the noiseless space, "Emma?"

"Its so pretty here," Emma's murmur flattened the space between them.

"What is it?"

"Just thinking. When I was younger." Emma remained still.

Regina crossed the room and slid her arms around Emma, who leaned back into her warmth, comforted as she drifted and continued, "It was so quiet at night. We all slept in a big room together, all of us under twelve. The nursery guardians, our teachers, slept by the doors. We used to escape out of this window and go down to swim in the creek. It would've been very early morning, two or three. We would've done this when we were four or five, I guess. The creek was always freezing in the darkness. It was so much fun."

Emma's eyes unfocused, the curve of her mouth hovering fondly with the memory. Regina remaining wrapped around the woman she loved, allowed her float among the memories reflected upon the surface of the lake. A short while later, when it was apparent she would not say any more, Regina pulled Emma to their bed where Regina drifted back to sleep in her arms.

Emma, unable to sleep, as it is too evasive in this peace, disentangled from Regina and slipped out of the large, warm room and of the mansion into the cool pre-dawn. The path comfortably worn and smooth beneath her naked feet. The wood squeaked as she walked to the end and sat down.

The steady heartbeat of Regina asleep in the darkness is duplicitous, both an enticement and terrifying. The rhythm of her own heartbeat changed, tuned to Regina's source and aligned itself, until she could hear both beats rushing the sound of the sea through their bodies. She knows she loves Regina because her reality is defiantly better than even her dreams and she lost any desire to sleep when she could live it.

The boards of the pier squeaked while the pallor of the lightning sky turned grey. Life is both waking from it's sleep to welcome the rising star with slow haphazard grace, and beginning to sleep, feathers rustling as night faded.

"You haven't slept," a voice behind her stated as it moved and sat next to her.

"A little," Emma shrugged and nestled her head into Regina's shoulder while still maintaining her view of the lake.

"Tell me. Please." Regina's gently evoking love, amplified echoes through chambers of them both.

"It reminds me of when we were children. Killian and I. The sounds of the water in the creek. Finally understanding how to read. Morning sun rituals. How to bake bread. Beheading the ancient chickens."

Emma quietened, stilled by the ripple of pink flooding the world, replacing the gray while an undercurrent of peach rose to kiss the underbelly of sky, "but none of its really honest. It was keeping us infantile, hidden from reality, whist pretending we knew it all. You make me a better me. These memories are sticky residues and don't remind of home. You do. You, I find insane I want to wake up to you and when I don't, I miss you. I find it terrifying that I want to wake up to your face. Yet. I want to. Still. Sometimes it stops me sleeping."

"You humble me every single day. I love you," Regina said, flushed as the gold dawn swayed over the lake and blazed the glass lake into fire.

"Good," Emma lifted her head and turned slightly to look in Regina's eyes, finally able to say what she felt, her tone so slick, Regina slid right off without ever finding purchase, "Because I love you."

There lips met as the sky completely shattered darkness into daylight.

Killian and Emma are lying like they used to, on the earth with their souls bleeding into it, soft skin touching from their shoulders to their hands, resting love. It is a sense memory from childhood they could not remember not doing. The soft noises of Lake St. Clair surrounded them as dirt scratched across their backs, the sun heating their shirtless bodies, "I'm sorry Emma. I was jealous. Am jealous."

"Why?" the lilt in her voice reflected in his, always matching.

"You...you ran. I kind of followed. I never would've on my own. I always thought you'd have left, irrelevant of whether I followed. You didn't need me at all. You always have this, I don't know. Luck. You got us to the city. You got Gretchen. I got the bingo preacher. Ruby was scarred and almost blinded. You, though, just went on."

"Killian, it's still all you. You followed me. Preacher was very good to you, you just missed the comfort of Tempenka. Ruby's scars are her own. As are mine. We deserve to live, Killian. I know we were taught that outside of bounds would be cursed, but you need to grow beyond that. Challenge what we were taught. I'm not taking your jealousy."

"And I'm not giving it. I felt out on the serrated contour of reality when you ran, you carried within you the genesis of our destruction, you lost our freedom by stealing the opportunity to survive the urban decay thrust upon us, living as if we held no value or beauty or interest. We've always infected each other with this type of emotional contagion. I'm simply telling you it's been hard to see you get the luck again. We fly within our own wingspan, but sometimes another flies in front of you and eases the burden. You always flew in front of me, I took your tailwind yet missed what you can see out the front. Regina looks at you with such beauty. I see how she is with you, cusping the wind and guiding it to you."

Glowing in the sunshine, their unease with each other always temporary, their words only part reflection of the legacy within them, their birth bond unbroken.

"Killian. I don't know. Really. But she's something. She's willing to love me past our pain. She isn't just willing, she does. She does love me. Loves us. Because we are. At some point there is no...I've always loved lonely, because I've never been lonely, Killian. I've always had you and a destiny that is hard to outrun. We will never be those children again. She eases my pain, Killian. Please relax. She loves me because of our past and in spite of it," Emma paused, waiting for her voice to come back, waiting for the words to assemble, "Killian. This is how the future happens, not by avoidance, but by standing. I'm standing."


	8. Mercy

VIII MERCY

Dinner with Snow and Charm at Karaleigh's was a progression to their relationship she found hopeful and endearing. These two women dominated Emma's life as mothers. Emma slipped quietly out of the bedroom, shoeless yet dressed.

"Emma?"

"Hmmm?"

"You look beautiful," Regina walked up and procured kissed her cheek.

"Thank you," Emma whispered, encircling Regina to smooth their bodies together, kissing her.

"You need to calm down," Regina murmured between kisses, her breath rustling against Emma's lips.

"I know. Dinner is serious, though," Emma sighed.

"Only because its absolutely obvious we're..."

"We're what?"

"In love..." Regina sighed, "...it falls of us."

"Only?"

"Heroic, then," she laughed, "but we should get going or we shall be late."

"Heroic?" gathering her bag, she followed Regina out of the apartment, "like an old time movie?"

"Everlasting. We've beautiful lives...All of those showers and sneaking off for inappropriate nap times..." Regina pushing the elevator button, the door at once opening. They stepped in and Emma hit the lobby button. Regina dropped her hand, lacing her fingers into Emma's. Walking out of Ellysion, flawless, together they turned to walk up to Karaleigh's.

Regina squeezed slightly too tightly, "...is this how you felt going to Westwood?"

"Yes. Except Snow and Charm already like you because I love you and you've all met on several occasions," Emma crinkled her nose, "and I hadn't met the three."

"It wasn't that bad!"

"No, and neither will this," this becoming a pattern, for them, calming each other.

Finding the crisp spring air refreshing, invigorating them through Clovia Hills and into Briar, towards the waterfront boardwalk, strings of light glowing their path to Karaleigh's.

"You know the Chef?" Emma asked while walking the last half block.

"No, the trilogy do. She has a place out at the lakes, and obviously uses their stuff. Knows Kathryn, too."

"Kathryn had that beautiful breakfast place in Locust Grove you took me too?"

"Yes," Regina replied, walking into a cacophony of noise, murmured voices both at the booths and the packed bar.

"Welcome to Karaleigh's. How may I help?" asked the perfectly suited maitred'.

Karaleigh's is shaded in lush, vibrant greenery, interlocking plants cascading from the roof and covering the walls. Only the view of the riverside remained unhindered, glass doors open to the sounds of the city at night. Their table overlooked the languid river, black slate underneath the quarter moon.

"Emma, Regina," Charm stood as they approached, Snow smiling. Light kisses are exchanged before settling into the booth.

"You walked?" Snow asked.

"Of course. You?" Regina replied.

"Yes," Charm answered, "Zola said she's already prepared our meal."

"Of course she has," Emma snorted softly.

Charm raised her eyebrow, "Emma?"

"Her names means famous bearer of rulers. She is a commander. Of course she'd dictate our menus."

"You and your names," Charm said softly, lovingly, squeezing Emma's knee, "connecting us all."

"You said you were apprenticed at the Eloise together?" Regina asked of Snow.

"Yes, I replaced her as the first year once she went to second."

"Intense?"

"Absolutely," Snow's smile did not reach her eyes, "as I imagine a medical internship may be."

Emma cleared her throat sharply as appetisers appeared on their table.

Snow flushed, "Eloise was, is, a very tough place to learn. They do not allow mistakes."

"Clientele can be quite demanding at Eloise, I'm sure," Regina is unsure if she is being tested or not, "but at least your mistakes won't kill people."

Awkward silence uncomfortably fell, pervading the four.

"Really?" Emma said, rolling her eyes, "Charm. Snow. Regina. Now, of all times?"

"Sorry," Charm straight off said, not at all meaning it, "isn't this context meant to be an inquisition?"

"As opposed to any other time you've met?"

"Really," Snow shrugged, laughing, seeing the immutable truth of their love, "I feel you are being rather diplomatic, want to trade horror stories?"

"Maybe," Regina subtly relaxed, "Isn't their fierce international competition for this Eloise's apprenticeship?"

"Yes. Very much so. Prestigious and exclusive, only taking one applicant a year. Eloise guarantees it's graduates work. Several of the Eloise board had their multi-million dollar car's repaired at Granny's. Most of them knew me from when I was an infant."

"This is when Granny's was an actual smash repairs?" Regina asked, "using connections to get the job, hmmm?"

"Yes," Snow laughed softly, "Eva and Lee, my mothers, were very indulgent of me. I found cooking very early, and they both wanted the best for me. Eloise is defiantly the best."

"So, a love of cooking and connections got you the Eloise?"

"Yes, and it was horrible. I was possibly a very indulged child, and an apprentice is the kitchens kicking post, the absolute bottom of the hierarchy. It made me fierce and fearless, though. In those four years, I worked very hard, and barely slept, yet still was bullied, demeaned, pushed to extremes. I was very talented, however my mothers had called in favours to get me this, so I held my silence, favours they could have used later on. I was offered a position at Eloise, but I left, ran away, rejected Eloise for a fellowship overseas, in a country known for its culinary delights. I was tainted, weary and unforgiving."

"How long were you gone?" Regina's voice an undercurrent, soft and flowing, between them as their table was cleared of the entrée and main meals placed in return.

"Twenty years, building my reputation from one job to the next, a new experience in a new country. I came back when Eva became sick."

"I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago," Snow smiled sadly, as she deflected by asking, "you interned at MARH?"

"Yes. The neurological unit. I wasn't as feted or as loved by my parents, but everything else is frightfully similar. Intense, hierarchical, inescapably fatiguing," Regina's voice rueful, "but I love it, I guess it's why I now head the unit. I get to fix the part that runs everything, the brain's this monstrous machine, and it's amazing."

Emma hadn't seen Regina talk about working before and its turning her on all over again, being so understandably ferocious about her passion.

"I think we need something lighter to talk about?" Charm countered.

"What about you two?" Regina responded, "How is it you found each other?"

"I met her at Granny's the week it opened," Charm said, "with my sister, Collette."

Regina looked between them, sadness dripping from their voices, evoking the death of sisters and mothers, "Emma said Eva is the reason for Smash Punch?"

"Yes, she was amazing. When I opened Granny's, I saw homeless shifting within the shadows of our sub-streets, sheltering from the wrath of weather and fellow humans. The name came from one of Eva's journals," Snow's hand drifted to Charm', entwined together, absorbing their love, while plates are moved to make way for desert, "and I met Collette, Charm and Belle."

Charm understood Snow intimately, knew what her touch asked, "I founded Pacer Philanthropic Organisation. Collette loved Granny's, and Smash Punch, and wanted to help. From the start, our charity and lives kind of weaved together."

"Emma said you came here for Lunch? Showing each others version of the city as a getting to know each other ploy?"

"Yes. Lunch was spectacular," Regina smirked at Emma, "You said it was a ploy?"

"No," Emma sighed, smirking right back, "I think they figured that bit out themselves."

"Well it worked," Regina said, stealing a quick kiss quietly while desert is cleared and aperitifs appeared, "very well, in fact."

* * *

Since the group Lake St. Clair trip and dinner with Charm and Snow, Regina relaxed into her immeasurably improved life with Emma. The cohesion between them stunning, her isolation left far behind as she could see the city in a fundamentally new way. Ruby gradually becoming her friend, and slow development with Killian brought the fresh quartet circling into each other. She sat at CLS, waiting for Emma as her mind drifted around this delight, always a misstep away.

Emma was finishing at eight and agreed to meet her here. She arrived dishevelled from work and still stunning, Regina stood to greet her, lips lightly meeting, falling towards Emma's green eyes until she is swimming within them, her fingers grazing black corset, ribbons intertwined and tied into discreet little bows over intricate lace. Leather pants and heavy boots filled her out.

Regina sat, distracted by the bows, wanting them in her mouth, desiring to unwrap the hidden treasure beneath. Drinks appeared before them as they drifted around the circular booth to sit next to each other, shoulder to knee, their arms entwining from elbow to fingers.

"Remember when you asked me about Ingrid?"

"Yes," Regina said, encouraged by Emma gradual revealing of herself understood how exhausting and traumatic, it could be.

"We survived living on the streets, as infested as they were, only to end up twisted, irrevocably, in a system that wanted more from us than we could possibly give. Our saviour was Nan Wolf, a civil right attorney who knew our case could gain her the career advantage. It took three years of her fighting from when we were fifteen, and our freedom at eighteen to catapult her status to partner within her firm. I resented the lead physician on our case, Ingrid, for eventually gaining custody of only me. It was obvious that the agency wanted me and I resented the interference in our lives. Ingrid was sickly sweet, insidious in her persistence, attempting to curtail invasive needles and injections in exchange or trust," it tumbles out of her all at once, words hitting into each other.

Regina squeezed Emma's hand, leaning the infinitesimal distance to kiss her on her cheek, feeling her sharp breath and minute relaxing beneath her lips.

"I..." Emma struggled, "was unkind to her. She loved me and wanted me to stay, wanted me to be her daughter. I couldn't. I resisted her at every turn. Within the community I was raised in, every adult was responsible for the raising of children, no one claimed ownership. To think one would be enough, I didn't understand, and I could not give up Killian. The day I turned 18, I left everything she gave me and never told her where I was. It..." Emma paused again. Her eyes spun inward, a certainty now an uncertainty, "...was some thing I did because I felt I didn't want to be controlled. I hurt her. I regret it."

"Thank you for trusting me," Regina smiled and leaned in grazing their lips together, "I love you."

Emma sighed into their kiss, smiling through her tangled distress, she could never hear that enough, "There's one more thing. I'm to invite you to family dinner."

"Family dinner?" Regina asked.

"Yes. Charm, Snow, Belle, Killian and Ruby. You and me."

"So I passed? This happens often?" Regina said, excited, the invitation extended beyond bringing her into Emma's world, but within Emma herself. She felt wanted as well as the familiar moistness gathered between her legs.

"When we can all fit it in. Usually every eight weeks or so, at Snow and Charm' place in Circe Tower. Well, Beast usually schedules everyone but Killian. Do I have your permission to give her access to your phone and calendar? Or more accurately, I guess, install her?" Emma answered.

"Installed her?"

"Yeah, well she's the operating system on my phone and laptop, but some of her functions distilled into apps," Emma shrugged.

"Yes..." Regina pulling Emma in to connect their lips, unable to resist any longer, "of course."

* * *

Henry was thirteen when her life changed, enabling her to see choices could be made that were her own. Her mother had taken the case of the two teenagers who were alone in the world against a government agency, the Federal Security Agency (FSA), attempting to circumnavigate their choices and control their lives.

Nan is a formidable force and in watching her argue that choice to determine ones own destiny was a right made her realise she could choose for herself, her future could be her own over the destiny dictated by her parents.

Emma became her inspiration, however it was not easy to stand up to the legacy thrust upon her. She was infinitely impressed her mother had fought and won against the government, yet her mother was a dichotomy. She had forged a career on self-determination, and an affinity for the freedom to make your own, yet managed Henry down a very specific path she was not allowed to deviate from.

* * *

Ingrid started in paediatrics, and almost by accident become a consultant with the police for infants coming in from Kahtya Slums, mostly on neonatal infant abuse, death and drug cases. She developed quite stringent forensic procedures as her case load spread across the cities law enforcement agencies for providing expert testimony in court cases. Her world full of infant rehabilitation programs and consulting. She was content, fulfilled beyond measure and built her life where knowledge and connections made her wealthy. Her apartment within Phoenix felt more home than anywhere else, her own silence against the noise of the world.

Ingrid consulted on a case for the FSA, two teenagers who spoke in a language only the two could understand and the girl spoke exclusively for them both, with her pale hair and searing green eyes. She shielded the boy with fierce intensity. Her initial directive, to complete a medical history of them both, was difficult. Killian would not speak, and tailored his responses in test stimuli to mimic Emma's, in spite of them being separated. Emma would answer with very direct and specific information and refused to elaborate.

Separating the pair simply made Ingrid's job impossible. Ingrid received infinitesimal information from the FSA — what she did receive was 80% redacted — yet she knew they'd been homeless for twelve months and before this, were in an isolated community. There was a suggestion of sexual abuse, but Ingrid found no evidence.

She assembled a team experienced with isolated and non-communicative minors, but met with resistance and interference from the FSA. The psychiatrist submitted a damming report the damage being perpetrated by the FSA in these circumstances worse than what they had experienced. Ingrid placed the pair back together and did not seek their trust but their cooperation. Emma stood for them both, always brazenly independent.

Both had particularly unique blood work. Killian's contained no antibodies found in the general population. Neither had had their infant shots, but at least Emma's indicated some form of hereditary inoculations no more than two generations back. It was phenomenal they had not both been severely ill, knocked out by some simple flu.

The FSA attempted to use this as evidence they needed to be in a permanently controlled environment. While Ingrid determined an immunisation schedule, she argued their exposure and survival during the year on the streets voided their argument. The psychiatrist report indicated they would suffer irrecoverable damage if contain within such an environment.

The pressure from FSA became so relentless Ingrid, concerned for the welfare of the pair, contacted Nan Wolf, and initiated her legal challenge. After much negotiation and expert testimony, the FSA failed in their bid to keep control. Killian, emotionally underdeveloped and in most need of a cohesive, structured environment was considered secondary to Emma. Emma presented to be much more challenging in finding a suitable placement. To keep her protected, Ingrid gained custody, unperturbed by the threats from the FSA.

The regular psychiatrist appointments and reports indicated allowing them both independence from each other was fundamental for their development into constructive adults. They were unlike any other case she had seen. Neither had been neglected or abused, both could be considered educated and adept at transferable survival and social skills. Not long after she moved in, Emma began to work at Pacer, Ingrid encouraged the stability and continued development of her friendships with Ruby and Belle, important to be outside of her dynamic with Killian.

Over the three years Emma and Killian were in care, they were freed from their forced committed to, but not from their control of the FSA. While they were still held under constant monitoring and surveillance, as much as they did with Tempenka, no argument could be made they could not or did not function perfectly within society.

They fulfilled all of the functionality and duties Wolf had negotiated and developed a wealthy support base in the Pacer group that could not be dissuaded or broken, and, at 18, had each other. Ingrid was almost flummoxed that they managed to received what was at worst described as corporate sponsorship and believed that this was the mitigating factor in their release rather than her own or Nan's effort.

* * *

Emma threw up in Regina's bathroom. Regina sat to the side, back up against the wall until Emma finally settled back to rest on her feet. Regina handed her a cool, damp cloth.

"I'm sorry, Regina."

"For what? I'm sorry she upset you so badly," Regina's voice a melody calming Emma's stuttering heartbeat.

"Unexpected is all. She's intense," Emma knew after a lifetime of arguing, Regina's mother wielded language like a weapon, her voice full of concise, sharp edges.

"She is," Regina agreed at the unannounced and therefore unexpected arrival of her mother for lunch, "She's a powerful woman is all, her job is to be intimidating."

"She certainly is. I should be used to intimidating women by now," Emma concentrated on regulating her breathing, and forced her stomach to settle, "what's your mother's full name?"

"Cora Mills."

"Really?" Emma looked surprised.

"Why? What's wrong with it, doesn't it fit?"

"Nothing is wrong with it. Cora means maiden. Mills means of the mill. Your mother," Emma smiled lopsidedly at Regina, "means maiden of the mill."

"So, she fits?"

"You certainly make me happy," Emma stood, her legs slightly shaking.

Regina stood to hold her, balance her, "She turned up because I told her about you. She knew if I told her anything at all, you mean something to me."

"What did you tell her?"

"The truth," Regina smiled, "that I love you."

"When?"

"I told her the day before the opera," and even though it is mid-afternoon, asked, "Shower?"

"More of a brush my teeth adventure, but sure..."Emma giggled softly, "...we tend to get distracted easily in the shower, though."

"Of course..." Regina began removing Emma's shirt, "But we get distracted everywhere, to be honest."

Emma slipped out of her pants as Regina pushed them down, standing as nakedly exposed as she figured out the dates and asked "You told her you loved me before you told me?"

"Pretty well much," Regina began undressing and uncharacteristically left her clothes where they fell on the floor as Emma walked to the control panel, pushing her favourite settings, "in my defence, I told the trilogy before that and why I love you, and you know, took you to meet them."

"Hmmm, well..." Emma took the toothpaste covered toothbrush from Regina, moving beneath the water, the rest muffled by white noise.

"We really won't see her much. I barely see her now."

"That's not really the point, is it?" Emma turned under the water to face Regina.

"I guess not. Still," Regina nestling her body against Emma's, "She's her own life. I've mine with you, and I want this. We only intersect because we're related. Outside of us, don't care."

"It wasn't that bad, I just wasn't prepared," Emma dumped her toothbrush on the bench, "it'll be fine if I know."

"I love you," Regina leaned in to rest their foreheads together, "and I'm sorry. I should have planned for a meeting, knowing she would do this."

"I super love you, too" Emma leaned in, resting in the weight of them perfectly, "and possibly you should've, but been and done now."

* * *

Emma thought about Ingrid, about the love she offered and was rejected for it. Everything about that time wrapped in deception, secrets and lies and Ingrid had represented all of this to her still learning self. The truth is far more complex, and in the three years since she walked out without a word, Snow reminded her of this severe misjudgement of Ingrid. Love constructed masks for her life and she thought herself unable to live without these masks until Regina taught her she could live.

Now that lust had settled to a more manageable dull ache rather than desperate neediness, Emma noticed all the small things Regina did in the everyday ordinariness of their connection, the quiet shift of alignments that pegged them together. Love removed her mask and forced her to reconsider her past behaviour. Ingrid compromised her career to give Emma the opportunity to be free, her love never told her lies. Emma still knew her number by heart, remembering out of guilt.

"Hello. Ingrid speaking."

"It's Emma."

Ingrid inhaled sharply, but said nothing.

"I was wondering if we could have coffee?" Emma's voice quivered. Silence crackled over the line until Emma could not stand it.

"Asceline," Ingrid said, pitched so low that Emma almost missed it, "30 minutes."

"Thank you." Emma said before the phone clicked in her ear. She was nervous, but knew Snow was right. It was time to release both of them from the past.

Emma made her way from her flat to Briar and into Asceline. Emma arrived early, ordering for them both, remembering her exact order, always. The building smelled of paper, ink and comfort. Their coffee was delivered as Ingrid walked in and Emma watched as her eyes drifted over the cafe's seating, resting when they hit her face. Sitting in uncomfortable silence momentarily as Emma drew herself back in, preparing for what she had to say, "I'm sorry, Ingrid, for the way I treated you."

Silence fell again as Emma picked at the tablecloth. They had mutated each other, Emma realised as she sat contemplating Ingrid's silent reaction. Both of them corroded and in pain and abrasively chased the cracks within each other even deeper. Ingrid watched Emma grow and learn in the years together, and maintaining her subversive sense of self against developing any relationship. She was self-determining at all times, maintaining her own structure and boundaries against incursion.

Ingrid learnt she herself had been corrupted by maternal love, unreciprocated but powerful and found Emma's rejection unexpectedly brutal. Emma slayed Ingrid's expectations at every turn as they developed along with each other, expanding with her sense of maternal responsibility. Life back then continued, both of them methodically concious of the delicate nature of them.

Emma worked and studied whilst all the time maintaining her stringent distance from Ingrid, who worked at building a relationship between them. Ruby and Belle were permanent presences, as were other adults allowed into the life Emma refused Ingrid access to — Snow and Charm.

Emma volunteered for the charity the women run, worked for their niece. These were the women Emma spoke with and went to for advice. It had broken Ingrid a little more each time, that she was never family chosen. Ingrid desired to provide a family for Emma, but had instead been left for one.

* * *

Even as Henry failed her audition, her parents were organising for her to attempt again, passing off the failure on nerves. It was here Henry understood it is not enough to fail, she needed to stand up for herself. She left the family apartment in Circe and walked to the place that always made herself feel safe, Asceline.

Walking in, she saw Emma sitting with Ingrid, both looking intense and melancholy. She understood their complicated history and slipped up a level, leaving the frappe she wanted for later.

Henry remembered Ingrid's presence as she became friends with Nan over the trial with FSA, remembered the chaotic emotional resonance tearing through all the music she composed. Henry understood, more than the others, Emma's trauma is her own and nothing Ingrid could do or offer would fix it.

Ingrid was developing these desires for family and while she should've been looking at the bigger picture, Henry's family became her alternative. Henry saw the turmoil when Ingrid initiated adoption paperwork in the six months before Emma's 18th birthday, the filing of this paperwork set off a chain of events requiring Nan to battle the FSA for attempting to bring the pair into permanent government custody.

Henry knew Nan had proven Emma and Killian success when they both completed their education, maintained employment and participated in charity, fulfilling all obligations of their release to foster care. Publicly, the FSA looked like monsters, privately Emma did, taking her ferociousness out on Ingrid.

Henry watched as Ingrid stumbled when Emma, with the freedom her mother had fought for her, took the insignificant amount of items she collected and left. Ingrid returned to an empty apartment where there was nothing. Ingrid focused so much of her energy on Emma that this devastated her, and she took the lack of any contact as vicious absence and rejection.

She stayed in the apartment a week until Nan pulled her out of her pain, showing her new ways to survive. They all attempted to keep track of Emma's life, in spite of the zero communication. While Ingrid envied Snow and Charm, the closeness shared with Emma, Henry saw how Belle, Ruby and Emma formed not only an impenetrable sibling bond, but had found freedom.

* * *

Ingrid now understood Emma as a catalyst, but not responsible for developing the sense of maternal desire causing her to suffer: her disappointment is her own. The sense of melancholy that invaded her was not a deprivation of herself but a transformation. In the face of pain, twisting the length of her body, she chose dignity.

"Thank you," Ingrid's voice an undercurrent of all of their history as Emma felt it fracture against her, "Can you tell me why?"

"Why I'm sorry or why I left?"

"Both. I think I understand, but I want to hear you say it," Ingrid distinctly remembers the day Emma come home, this slight, pale anomaly with green eyes, deep as an ocean and with as many secrets, remembers it for changing herself beyond the capacity to return to who she had been.

Ingrid, always has been driven, focused and alone suddenly was not responsible for simply herself, but for the intricate daily welfare of another with particularly special needs. Ingrid stood aside as their primary physician, a job she understood intricately, to gain full legal responsibility for Emma, a path she became lost within.

She tried as much as she could to gain Emma's trust, setting a bare minimum of cohesive, distinct rules. She provided tutors to attend Emma's education, and by the second year she was taking college level courses. They reached a commonality at a very basic level and for three years, existed in this quiet battleground, a delineated space where everything existed and yet nothing was resolved.

"I'm sorry I hurt you and rejected you. I'm responsible for Killian and I believed at that time you were part of the group attempting to control us. I mistook all of your actions as proving this. I was wrong and for that I'm sorry."

"Thank you. Really." Ingrid smiled at last. Three years and not one word from Emma. But she clung to the belief forgiveness can be bigger than pain, "that's what I thought. I'm sorry for pushing so hard."

They returned to silence again, but it was indefinitely more comfortable. Ingrid looked up at Emma before asking, "Where do we go from here?"

"I don't know," Emma smiled.

* * *

Henry found Emma an hour later, alone, standing to leave. Henry, desperate to free herself, saw the opportunity and walked up, "Emma?"

"Yes..." Emma looked up, sensing the desperation, "Henry? What is wrong?"

Henry was silent for a moment, said, "Can we talk? Would you like another drink?"

"Yes. Thank you." Emma sat back down as Henry took the short walk to the counter and indicated Emma as she gave the order. She returned to shyly sit down in the chair vacated by Ingrid.

"Henry?" Emma said, too exhausted to maintain much of a pretense. She waited until Henry made eye contact before stating, "What is it?"

"How do I..." Henry faltered, twitching with nerves, her voice low and squeaky, "I want to be free."

Her voice so quiet Emma would not have heard it anywhere else but in the silence of a book store, "What do you mean?"

"Do you remember me?"

Emma frowned, "Remember you?"

"I'm Nan's daughter." Henry watched as Emma reacted, her face betraying the memories Emma went through, this on top of the conversation she had with Ingrid overwhelming.

"Nan?" the weight of those years flooded through Emma.

"Yes," Henry nodded, "I was thirteen when all the stuff happened. Well, started."

"You played music?" Emma didn't remember Henry, yet recalled the haunting music filling Nan's apartment.

"Yes. That is my problem. My parents want me to play with RCPO. I failed my audition. Intentionally. I want them to leave me alone. But..." Henry struggled not to cry, "they want me to audition again. I love music, but they make me hate it."

"They don't know you failed intentionally?"

Henry slowly shook her head, her eyes downcast. She was quiet as she said, "I don't know how to tell them no."

"Why are you asking me?" Emma maintained her eye contact even when Henry was unable to, failing to see the reasoning of the younger girl.

"Because you seemed so...controlled. Even when you had none. You made your own decisions."

"But I ran away, Henry."

"I know. But you also ran towards what you wanted."

"I don't know what I want. Even now."

"Except to be free," Henry intonation mournful. Emma showed her that artists are crazy bohemians who break the rules to recast their own, gathering life rather then follow neat, maintained pathways. Emma traced out new space for herself to be free, unlearning the constraint of her youth while refusing to live by new ones.

"Yes. Except that," Emma conceded, opening her palms up from the cup, "Talk to them. Truth is hard, but it needs to be told. It is better than loosing your family? Ask for what you want, but expect resistance, so give them time frames. Realistic ones. You can ask for a year, and offer them a proper audition at the end of this."

Sitting quietly, the silent shuffling of Asceline's customers pervading calmness. Henry said finally, "I'm scared."

"Its better than not saying anything and never getting what you want, or never finding out what it is that you truly want," Emma understood why Beast did not tell her Henry's connection to her. Henry was not a threat to her, simply a misguided teenager seeking freedom.

"Okay," Henry shuddered.

"Your mother argues logically for a living. Your father deals with numbers and figures. That's how they will understand. Present her with a cohesive argument, calmly."

"They'll not listen..." Henry said desperately, "...they never do."

"Then you'll never be free. Running away did not make me free, it made me a target. Running from your family has consequences," Emma's truth brutal, but Henry wanted what she could not give her, permission, "You want freedom? Then take it."

"Thank you," Henry whispered, understanding Emma was not placating her with what she wanted to hear.

* * *

Beast's assimilation into Regina's life both startling easy and frustratingly complex. Beast initially asked for endless permissions to access her phone and laptop and work computer, her shared staff calendar, managed by her executive assistant. Endless requests to add her calendar to Emma's, her permission to compare it to Ruby, Killian's, Snow and Charm'. She found it surreal.

Beast lead her from work to Antique Atelier one night. She weaved her way through the crowd to the end of the bar shifting in to a spot with a view of the stage, captivated by the restless energy of jazz as it danced across her, catching her breath as it refused to stand still. Antique was full, crowds shuffling against each other, softly murmuring underneath the powerful music cascading around the room. It was darker than Regina remembered, full of shadows, the seating was precisely haphazard, arranged in an odd viewing arch rather than for eating.

Ruby was playing the sitar and Emma's body wrapped around the cello. Regina recognised the pianist, saxophonist and double bass player, but could not place their names. Henry played percussion. Their jazz is nomadic, it can't, won't stand still and flooded Regina with unexpected permeations. Fingertips tapped her on her wrist, a drink placed next to them.

Regina turned, smiling at Cat, mouthing thank you as she waved off payment. Regina struggled to regulate her breathing as she watched Emma taken by the music, the group centring around tones and playing off each other spectacularly. Regina noticed Pacer's symbol, along with another, a Reaper with "PBLH" along the scythe blade, on some of the equipment, and the group are surrounded by similarly branded microphones.

Most days Emma's sex appeal is effortlessly accidental, as if a simple by product of her beautiful existence, but when done on purpose, with this type of focused intent, the effect on Regina is absolute with its utter devastation. The group are dressed as Noir dancers — old and timeless, at once ancient and infused with youthful energy. Regina ached, moistness dampening inside her underwear, as she watched, fascinated, becoming vulnerable and unmoored.

At the close of midnight, the band finished, taking the applause with them while disappearing into the backstage. Regina, lost, slowly began reeling her scattering back into herself, withdrawing her heartbeat to a more regular tone, even thought the rush of blood still dominated her hearing. As lights came on, and she walked out to feel the brisk air clean her head, the crowd slowly dissipated along the darkened street, the soft bleating of her phone asking her to wait.

"Hay," a voice drew her out of her reverie as Emma's body collected into her own, connected along their length, kissing her deeply, before, "Regina..." Emma said, drawing back slightly to look her in the eyes, "Are you okay?"

"Yes," Regina's voice is deep, "Really. You're phenomenal. I'm overwhelmed by your talent. I love you."

"Regina, I love you. Its simply playing...you've literally performed brain surgery. I simply played a little cello," Emma murmured in her ear as the employees emptied into silence, "I didn't know you were coming. I'm glad you did."

"Beast told me."

Regina sighed against Emma's cheek, filling with emotions she couldn't describe or say.

"Emma," a voice called from the doorway called.

Emma twisted away from Regina, who tensed at the loss of full body contact, "Hey, Ruby."

"Hi Regina. We're going to Harper's."

"Awesome," Emma smiled as the rest of the players hustled out of the door behind her. Feeling down Regina's arm, she grabbed her hand, "Regina, this is Claudia, Xaiden, Calais, Estelle and you know Henry."

"Hi."

"Guys, this is Regina," Emma shifted her head slightly, "You want to go to Harper's?"

Regina twisting Emma into her and wrapping her arms around her waist, pulling her flush against her, drawing her lips together, kissed Emma and nodded, "Yes, sure."

The babble of voices around them continued as they walked up to the monorail, Emma's hand secured within Regina's.

"You okay? You sure that you want to go to Harper's?"

"Yes and Yes. Why do you play jazz?"

"Because I'm nostalgic for a life I've never lived and a history I've never encountered. It teaches me how to embrace imperfection, celebrate it, revel in it."

"What is the Reaper symbol?"

"Pacers Bootleg Live. They record live music. What we just did will be available at the shop."

"Really?"

"Yup. Ruby wrote that, too, composed it."

"You act like none of this is a big deal."

"Because its not," Emma shrugged, indiffident. Regina sighed at how remarkable she found herself loved by this.

"Will we get a copy? Do you have many recordings of your playing?"

"If you want a copy, sure. Beast has a music app player, and you can get a digital copies of past stuff if you'd like."

"Yes, please."

Later, as they lifted their glasses, the group taught her a new toast, "May we always be this incomplete."

* * *

The truth is it made her life easier when Beast integrated everything. While she found annotating her appointments, meetings and functions for Beast initially invasive, they gradually began to fade as Beast learned her idiosyncrasies. The side trip to Antique Atelier and every day subtle contact with Emma was innovative, and by the time family dinner arrived, Beast co-coordinated the schedule so precisely, she realised she had stopped maintaining any of her own events.

Beast felt that Regina was initiated enough and trained her functionality enough to be invited to join Iviesphere. Regina noticed the invitation and called Emma to clarify what she was getting herself in for. Beast patched her through to Emma's headset, and her voice immediately lightened Regina's day.

"Hay Regina."

"Hi," Regina paused, remembering the first time she called Pacer and was rejected this privilege.

"Regina? What's wrong?" concern filtering through.

"Oh, nothing, happy to hear your voice is all. What on earth is Iviesphere?"

"Oh. Right. Beast must've thought you were ready. The internal social network for Pacer and Granny's staff, Smash Punch volunteers and associates, but is often extended to family and friends."

"Oh, Ok," Regina sounded confused.

"You don't have to, you know, but its the like the fun side of the calender/life management," Emma giggled, "and you already know Belle, Killian, Ruby, Charm, Snow, so..."

"Help me with it tonight?"

"Sure, but, you know, just tell Beast and she will probs do it for you."

"Okay..." Regina sounded dubious.

"Life management, Regina, she's totally invasive."

"Okay. Anyway, thanks. See you tonight?"

"Yes, tonight. Still love you," Emma chuckled.

"Always love you."

* * *

Raptor City had three gated tower complexes, defining the skyline, all located in Clovia Hills, a symbol of the wealth pervading the city. Emma was sitting in Charm and Snow's dining room, swirling her glass around.

Belle, Ruby, Regina and Killian were sitting around the table. Circe Tower is quiet, as always, and a beacon, shinning the comfort of home none of them spoke of, yet built together after their first families imploded. Tonight Regina's induction into the ritual, and they walked from the Ellysion.

"So, you met with her?" Snow asked.

"Hmmm," Emma assented. Ingrid lived in the Phoenix Complex. "At Asceline."

"And?" Snow pressed.

"I apologised. So did she," Emma smiled as Regina's hand appeared on her leg, squeezing reassuringly, subtle intimacy, "She seemed okay. But then a weird thing...Henry came up to have a chat."

"I'm proud of you," Charm said, "that took courage."

"Henry's the one you introduced to me at the lunch for SP?" Snow asked, nodding at Charm' words.

"It was odd," Emma said, as she nodded, "She was so...desperate to break away from her parents. Mostly her mother, I think. Remember Nan? She was a kid when her mother defended us. Its as if she wanted me to do it, you know, talk to her mother."

"Yes, she's Nan's daughter. They live in this building," Snow stated, surprised still that Emma did not recognise Henry, missing the connection. Regina accepted another anomaly of Emma's past half divulged.

"Nan can be intimidating," Killian smiled, "Henry would probably feel that as well."

"Trust Henry to see any of us as people to look up to," Ruby snorted.

"She was a child when all of you were around," Charm reminded them, "Of course she looked up to all of you. To her you were free. You didn't have parents telling you what to do."

"No, we'd strangers instead," Emma rolled her eyes.

"She didn't see that," Charm countered.

"I guess," Emma said, "I should've probably been gentler."

"Brutality may suit you, most likely not Henry, so yes, that may be more appropriate," Charm laughed.

Regina watched the exchange, the trust encapsulated in this warm room. They were family as much as Maleficent, Mulan and Cruella were to her, and she felt within this moment loose, as unbound as she had ever been before.

Goodbyes were said as Killian left for his shift. Belle sidled up to Emma, whispering into her ear.

"Okay," Emma following Ruby into Belle's bedroom.

"I guess they're leaving you here with us," Snow watching them disappear, "Coffee?"

"Please."

Regina sat close with Charm and Snow, coffee aroma filling the room.

"Did she forget I'm here?"

"I highly doubt that. She's rather taken with you," Snow said.

"I suppose I'm rather taken with her as well."

"I like how close she is now. Beast show you the quickest way to walk here?" Charm sipped at her coffee.

"Yes. I think Beast's conspiring to keep Emma there more often," Regina blushed slightly, "not that I mind."

"Absolutely Beast would do that. She hates Emma's flat. Uninstalled herself and refuses to go back. Expect a request for her to invade your home."

"Beast's terrifying and easy. She lead me to Antique Atelier to see Ruby and Emma play Jazz one night. Yes, her flat is quite..." Regina searched for the right word, "...abysmal."

"Emma said you turned up," Charm smiled, "Beast does that, coaxes everyone astray even while leading them together."

"How was Alpha house?" Snow changed topics.

"This past week, or just in general?"

"Both, I guess. She first took you on her 24 hour date, yes?"

"Yes. It's vastly different to the charity I do. I usually make decisions. Alpha is front line. I like being with her when we volunteer together. Emma said you've been together all of Belle's life?"

Charm face tightened, "Yes."

"Sorry, did I say something wrong?"

"No. We've been together since she was two," Charm replied.

"Collette? First customers at Granny's?"

"Yes..." Snow sighed, as Charm' hand tightened over her thigh.

"Sorry, Regina. Its one of those transformative times in our lives. We met, yes, fell in love, but my mothers, Eva and Lee were already very ill. Eva died the second year we were together, Lee the third. We met Ruby, Emma and Killian not long before we lost Collette and Saber," Charm nose twitched, her voice falling, "Emma is herself and I'm very glad she found you, but they're our daughters, and we are concerned as inevitably any consequences, positive and negative, affect us all. It almost seems some times we have an awful exchange rate."

"Emma is quite a charmer," Snow added, "and hasn't been defeated by her life."

"Yes, she certainly is," Regina leaned back into her chair, "and you're so protective of her."

"How much has she told you?" Charm quietly asked.

"It's hard to tell," Regina lifted her eyes, searching their faces for how to proceed, "She half tells me things, mentions things in passing before I realise there is an entire story behind it. If I ask, she simply closes down."

"We know, she is..." Snow looked apologetic, "...extremely difficult to know..."

"But immeasurably easy to love," Charm added.

Regina hummed her approval, "Yes, very much. She told me about Belle and Collette, Eva and Lee, Ingrid and some about Killian. Its hard to gather a history half told, but it's easy to wait when she's with me."

"There are only so many ways to fall love," Charm shrugged, "all at once or not at all."

"Did you both fall in love all at once?"

"Belle did," Charm laughed, "fell head first at Snow and refused to let go."

"Yes. Well. Neither could I. She was adorable," chuckled Snow, but her eyes betrayed terrible sadness, "this little squishy infant."

"What happened?" Regina asked, her voice infused with cream.

Snow leaned into Charm instinctively, seeking immediate comfort in her presence, whose response one of uninhibited love. Regina saw how similar they are to Maleficent, Mulan and Cruella, elliptical within their acoustical love, and hope skittered within her for Emma's and her own future.

"A lot happened," Snow said, "but all a long time ago."

"Not for Emma. She doesn't forget, holds everything."

"We know," Charm frowned, "So hard it hurts."

"Neither of you hurt her. Ruby and Belle don't. I don't. That's why I am here, isn't it? Killian hurts, but he's connected to everything, something deeper, she will not say."

"You're remarkably perceptive," Charm looked at Regina, inscrutable.

"Yes. Well." Regina looked at her coffee, sensing the minute shifts on the sofa as they touched each other as close as possible, lengthening against each other, she said, "Collette taught Belle music, you taught her responsibility. You both wanted Emma, Ruby and Killian but were denied, yet have become a family anyway. Belle, Ruby and Emma are exceptionally close, bonded by death and love," Regina sipped at her coffee, looking at Snow, "Lee protected Eva and they loved you."

"Yes she did, yes they did, yes we did," Snow smiled, "History is a funny thing."

"Its a torturous thing," Regina retorted, "makes the present jittery and the future uncertain."

"Yes. Certain," Snow added, "Death happened. Life happened. Love happened."

Regina looked at them both, absorbing the subtle energy inhabiting the space, the almost drunk, pervasive peace.

"Perfection happened," Charm, running her hand along Snow's arm, said "We've the scars."

"Collette? Eva? Belle?"

"We prefer the living, but yes," Snow continued, "Eva always said I was the gift of her life. I never really understood until I met Belle."

Giggling broke through their conversation and a streak of laughter following one body from a door flung open, over the couches and into the kitchen.

* * *

"Its absolutely offensive how in love you are with her," Ruby snickered.

"Precisely," Belle nodded, "It's disgusting."

"You both can shut up," Emma rolled her eyes as he rearranged the pillows, shuffling further into the centre of the bed, as the other two curled up around her.

"I can see why Beast loves her," Belle settled her head in Emma's lap, Ruby's in hers, the three a circle nestled in Belle's bed.

"Beast is happy with anyone you give her permission to talk to..."

"She is beautiful."

"I know. I'm kinda finding it hilarious she is out their alone with Snow and Charm right now..."

"She'll be fine. Dinner went well?" Ruby laughed, "Charm wasn't wholly insane."

"Yes, it did. I know, she's just been fierce every time she's been near Regina."

"I guess you're not staying tonight?" Belle frowned.

"Didn't really think about it to be honest. We walked from Ellysion."

"Her presence at family dinners is required now, she understands, yes?"

"She's still getting used to Beast. Although she did followed Beast's instructions to Antique for Jazz night," Emma exhaled in delight.

"You know Beast is basically obsessed with you both, yeah?"

"Why are you saying that like its a bad thing?"

"Its not bad...per se, but...Beast keeps using the way you look at each other to look at me. Its disconcerting."

"What, with devoted, worshipful love?" Ruby chuckled.

"I know," Emma scrunched up her face, "its pathetic, but I can't help it."

"It tots is," Belle laughed, "and nope, you're hopeless."

"She..." Emma smiled, "is insidiously subtle. You know she stocks Bumblebee Love in the fridge? She got me these stupid fluffy giant slippers that are just perfect..."

"Seriously, cute as," Belle fumbled with Emma's hand.

"No, its not..." Emma whined, "...you know her housekeeper washed stuff I left these and now I've a shelf in the closet? And now she's bubblegum body wash. Beast...have you been selling me out?"

Beast giggled, "No..."

"Beast..." warning crept into Emma's voice.

"I helped her with her shopping list...you said to help her..."

"Beast, you are so precious..." Ruby joined in Archers laughter.

"Ruby, this is not funny!"

"Oh, but it is disgustingly awesome..." Ruby snorted, "Beast is trolling your love life..."

* * *

"Why are you three jumping over the couches?" called Charm as another jumped over, running from the third chasing.

"Because we want..." one of them called back, until the rest was drowned out by three bodies physically collected against each other through the door and into the kitchen.

Charm stood with Snow and followed them. Regina stood to do the same when Emma rushed out, covered in cream, followed rapidly by Belle, Charm and Ruby all covered in cream and sundry. Emma snuggled into the back of Regina, who felt dampness soak through her shirt.

"Did you just get cream all over me?"

"Maybe. Also. Honey."

In an all to close amount of time, Regina was surrounded as Belle squished cream into Ruby, and five bodies snaked around each other, laughter bubbling around them.

"You cant hide behind Regina forever, Ems…"

* * *

"Does that happen at every dinner?" Regina asked as they walked back to Ellysion. She had changed into some of Emma's clothes, left in Belle's room.

"Its ridiculously how beautiful you are even in my clothes."

"You're being entirely too flattering and completely evasive."

"No, things like that rarely happen," Emma said quietly, "They were kind of teasing me about you, so I distracted them..."

Regina pulled her slightly to a stop and drew her in, kissing her, ferocious, "You started a food fight because of me?"

"Hmmm," Emma hummed against her lips.

Regina drew them in again, whispering, "You're so deliciously perfect."

"Let's continue this at home," Emma drew her the last two blocks.

The penthouse is so silent it hurt until Regina trailed Emma towards the bed, lowed her down while pulling her out of her shirt and unclasped her bra to throw them both to the floor. As she whispered her lips across pearly flesh, she hooked her thumbs into the pants and underwear to drag them down

Emma's legs until they, too, fell to the floor. Emma moaned, straining against Regina's caress until their faces were once again together. Emma looked into Regina's darkened eyes, arching her back as fingers pushed and curled inside of her.

Regina moved to the soft of Emma's neck and began another descent until Emma whimpered, "No, no, stay with me, please."

Regina moved back up to link their lips, connected by all the emotion she held over the day against Emma, whispering against them, "I love you, I love you, I love you."

Brushing her thumb against the swollen bundle of nerves, she pushed harder and quickened her pace. Lifting her eyes to fall into Emma's she glided into the galaxy they contained, their bodies shuddering uncontrolled together. Regina gathered Emma up, sheltering her close as possible.

When her breathing regulated, Emma muttered, "Regina..."

Regina caressed Emma's bottom lip before kissing her, quelling any fear and moved her lips, fluttering down soft skin, over the pulse escaping Emma's neck, into the sharpness in the blades curving in her arms.

"Regina," insistent, Emma's voice drifted.

"Let me...please..." Regina murmured against her skin.

Emma felt Regina taste every scar, worship every anomaly, unstrung herself against such love. Regina made her feel she could fall apart any second and it was glorious. Life on the edge where she is no longer alone and it exhilarated her.

After, Regina's head lies on Emma's chest and she hears the sound of her heartbeat thrumming, a whisper of her good fortune. She finds that she loves this sound, it lulls her to sleep with steady, unwavering precision, draws her unconsciousness out and leaves her dreaming into space.

* * *

It is Beast that leads her astray again, diverts her driver from her apartment and her into the Pacer basement by the side door, codes and directions supplied by Beast's insistence of her attendance at Belle's apartment.

She stopped after crossing the threshold of the door, to look at three bodies in the open space, swinging wildly, waving their arms over their head and turning rapidly in one hundred and eighty degree angles, light shimmered around them, bathing them in halos as their performances mimicked movements closer to ballet then anything gamer related.

Ruby called out first, then Belle before Emma turned and broke through the viscous light stream and positively bounds up to Regina, slipping a kiss onto her lips, "Hi, what are you doing here?"

"Um. Beast?"

"Beast?" Belle called, giggling a question rather than in warning, "Hay, I was winning?"

"Beast!" Ruby laughed, "Outrageous!"

"Coffee?" Emma mumbled against Regina's lips.

"Yes."

"Okay," Emma lead her back to the kitchen and released her over to Ruby and Belle as she walked over to the machine. Beast dropped down out of the light stream and flickered into her usual human form, looking bashful.

Regina snorted at her, "What game you were playing?"

"Kind of dance battle cross composer cross orchestra mixing, its kind of difficult to explain. I mean, really, its evolved over time. Kind of maybe musical scrabble twister?"

"Sounds...terrifying actually."

"Only to ones who have never played, I guess," Ruby smile turned predatory, "like all games by corrupted by family. Unrecognisable to the uninitiated..."

"Ruby. Coffee."

Ruby's head snapped around at the call, before she sat down with Belle on stools surrounding Regina, as Emma pushed mugs across, "You should be initiated. You followed Beast here, so family games it is."

Regina took a sip, swallowing shallowly, "Okay."

"Hungry?"

"Yes."

"Excellent. Snow sent enough food to sink us all in," Emma left her steaming mug and waked over to the fridge, pulling out a container and plating food while Regina followed her efficient, precise movements.

"You can't really help yourself, can you?" Ruby shouldered her gently.

"Huh?" Regina turned, shuttling her cup on to the bench.

"Watching her," Belle shifted on her seat, answering Regina.

Regina blushed slightly, "No, I guess not."

"Hell, I guess you two can be a team, then."

Emma pushed food towards them all, "Of course you would shaft me with the newbie."

"But you have me," Beast broke in, "I don't want to be on my own team."

"Okay. Well, at least with Beast, I've a chance," Regina agreed.

"Singular mode for us, double for them," Belle confirmed as they shared the light and easy lunch, parleying coffee until the inevitable match between them.

Regina became quickly lost within the game, confused yet pleasured by the intricacies of the game. As they finished there second round, Beast called dinner.

"What time is it?" Regina asked.

"Seven," Beast shrugged.

"We've been playing for..."

"Four hours."

"This is unexpected..." Regina frowned, "...I lost track..."

"Your schedule was clear," Beast said as Belle giggled, "and I'm monitoring your work correspondence. I would tell you if anything came up."

Emma and Ruby joined in the laughter at Regina's flummoxed face.

"Giggling already?" in their revelry, all four had missed the hissing of the door, "before dinner?"

"Charm, Snow," a chorus of voices called.

"Ladies," Regina nodded.

"You look flushed," Snow noticed Regina's face as she walked up, "Girls, what did you do?"

"Zee Zee."

Charm snorted, "Even I don't know how to play that."

"Yes, I'm not sure I do, either," Regina laughed, "thank you Beast for leading me here."

As Belle, Emma and Regina began unpacking the bags Snow and Charm had dumped on the table. Ruby lifted her head to see Regina's face, "Snow always feeds three hundred."

"Oh..." Emma looked up from opening containers, "...yes, Snow feeds an army."

"Can you blame her? You three eat like black holes, greedy in your hunger," Charm drew glasses down, having decanted the wine already, "give Regina time and she'll learn all of our idiosyncrasies."

Belle shrugged, grabbing plates, taking them to the table, "She has all the time."

As Regina joined the five at the table, Emma's hand appeared on her thigh, weighted comfort squeezing, it certainly felt like it.

* * *

Killian finally succeeded in getting them all to the new Tequila bar, Arantxa, subtly lit with a golden hue and spring loaded dance floor. Reaching Granny's in the early dark hours, sweaty from dancing and dizzy from tequila, seeking comfort food and for their night to never end.

Killian asked, "So, have you been to the new restaurant, Karaleigh's?"

"Yes," Emma mumbled through a mouthful of eggs.

Snow walked in from the dark and scanned the interior, bare of interesting customers before she hit the table of chattering friends. She pulled the jacket and gloves off, dumped them behind the bar with her bag and walked over, "Hey guys."

"Snow. Starting ever earlier," Ruby stood to hug her.

"Yes, when will demands," shrugging, "Regina, Emma, Killian, Robin."

"Nice to see you again," Regina nodded.

"And you," the night server brought coffee over to Snow as she grabbed a chair and pulled it up to the table, "So, where have you all been?"

"Arantxa."

"That new tequila bar? How was it?"

"Fine. They've a springy floor. Busy," Ruby said, smiling as she shrugged, "Why haven't taken me to Karaleigh's?"

"Karaleigh's is swanky. They use produce only from those types of places," Robin rolled his eyes, "They've no sense of community."

"Hey! Westwood Manor is one of the their suppliers," Regina laughed.

"So, have you been?" Killian asked of Snow.

Both Regina and Emma smiled as Snow nodded her head.

"Hmmm, dating as a group?" Killian looked aghast, mocking them.

Regina and Emma shrugged as Snow laughed, "Please, Killian, there more interesting things inside of the house."

"Yes, but you can also do certain things in public…" Robin said.

"Of course there are," Snow said "Whatever would I do if you two weren't here, stretching the limitations of my business. I don't have an adult entertainment license."

"You didn't tell me you had a second job…." Emma said, joining the laughter until they were all gasping for breath, the communal nature of comfort lifting them all.

By the time they finished their food, and contented with coffee, the black sky edged towards a soupy grey. Snow walked over to the kitchen to begin her work day as Emma, Regina, Ruby, Robin and Killian drifted to their apartments to sleep.


	9. Intergration

IX INTEGRATION TIME

"Breakfast..." Emma, naked and shimmering, beaded water hugged her skin from the shared shower, asked, "...at Sadie's? Although, it's more like lunch."

"Sadie's?" Regina said, towelling herself "Which place was that?"

"Oh, I haven't taken you yet? Sadie's, definitely then," Emma dried quickly, rapidly threaded her towel through an airing rack to walk through to the bedroom, searching for clothes, "Remember when I took you to Harper's? The place we danced..."

"Yes..." Regina followed, longing once more for Emma's sharp edges to graze her lips again.

"Sadie's is the daytime equivalent, they're right next to each other."

Regina watched Emma's searching eyes, until they found what she was seeking, her mobile. Regina intercepted the mobile and held it with a smile, "Ahem..."

"Well, Well…." Emma looked up, away from Regina's hand to her gentle form, filtered through daylight streaming in the windows and felt moist all over again. Emma closed the gap quickly to run her fingertips lightly over the edge of Regina's ribs and as she drew a sharp breath in, slipping her mouth over the gasp. The distraction allowed Emma to extradite her mobile and she giggled as she turned away.

"Hay, not fair! Get back here..."

"Nothing is ever fair...we're meeting Killian and Robin, remember?"

"Oh, right," Regina meant to sound happy, but her desire for Emma was distracting.

"Hangover breakfasts are fun, I'm hungry."

"So am I…." her voice saturated in desire.

"Regina…" Emma looked up at her and acquiesced, her own arousal betraying her ever more. She texted Killian revised timing, doubting they would be on time anyway, before throwing her phone to respond to the urgency Regina's touch evoked.

Regina felt Emma's intensity, the small curve sharp in her arching back, the sweep of her ribs across her chest. Regina whispered her lips across the crest of her stomach, hands seeking an embrace beyond her own. Emma twisted underneath her, exquisitely murmuring pleasure, reaching out and urgently pulling Regina. They arched together, merging flesh that tingled and glowed, shuddering.

Lying naked on the rug, her fingertips running over Regina's body, "Come on, we better go..."

It's early afternoon before the pair wandered out into the daylight, the town car taking them towards Sadie's.

"So, this is the day Harper's?"

"Yes. No dancing, though. Calming music, its more relaxing. Sadie's opens at dawn as the sun kisses the cityscape, closing as darkness encroaches. Sadie's and Harper's are two faces looking into a mirror and refracting the damage."

"Where as Harper's is more noise and dancing, Sadie's is quiet and calm?"

Emma nodded as she said, "We'll need to walk the last bit."

"Why?"

"Sadie's and Harper's are referred to as the coin face. They're the flip side's of the same coin, mirror reflections of each other. Sadie's is daylight, Harper's is night, and a town car is noticeable…in a bad way. That and I'll never live it down."

"Oh. Okay. Should I be worried?"

"About what?"

"Sadie's."

"Why? You were fine at Harper's. Killian, Robin and I'll all be there..." Emma laced their fingers together, adding, "I love you."

"I'll never tire of hearing that.." a smile crept on Regina's face as she leaned over and kissed her pulling back enough to say, "I love you," before pursuing how far the kiss would get her. The car ride short and all too soon dumped them out to the bright streets of a hidden shopping precinct. Emma led Regina down a side street, and around a few rubbish piles that could have been bodies curled up against the wind, all part of the breathing texture of the city, blending into each other.

"How do you know all of these places?"

"I told you, when we first came here, we lived on the streets. When you're minors, mostly, you need to stay out of sight," Emma shrugged, "Stay away from places you could be noticed. We learnt how to hide."

"Ash's fed you. Rainbeaux gave you shelter. Snow, Charm, Ruby and Belle became family. What's Sadie's?"

"Killian worked at Harper's before Malaree's like I worked at Antique Atelier. We hung out at Sadie's a lot, I guess, and they don't ask any questions. Kind of like you Asceline for you and the trilogy."

"Why does Killian not work at Pacer?"

"Choice. Killian gave up music as atonement for following me from Tempenka."

"Did you give up anything?"

"Of course," Emma's nose tweaked momentarily, "I gave up ever returning to Tempenka. I will not atone like Killian. I think we've suffered enough."

They came to Sadie's warmth, yellow painted walls emanating refracted fractured light stabs onto the cracked footpath, Killian and Robin were sitting towards the back.

"Hi guys," Emma said sitting down.

"Hi," Killian said.

"Where is the menu?" Regina asked, "I'm starving."

"There's none," Emma said, "Remember?"

"What do you mean?"

"There's not much else I could mean," smiled Emma, "there's no menu. Coin face works on the get what you're given policy."

"Why...why are we just given food?"

"Because..." Emma looked at Regina's sharp face with amusement, "...sometimes decisions are too hard to make."

"It is food..."

"No. It's not. Its another decision after an entire day of them. Behind a week of decisions, a month of choices, following a lifetime of them. Including the immediate one of choosing to come here. We feed so many things around us that it drains us of our energy and the last thing we need to be concerned about is how we nourish ourselves with food. We choose the place we need the most. If we're at Sadie's, we need our friends, to replenish ourselves, that's why the food here is fresh and green and wholesome. If we're at Harper's, we need to move, release tension. The food there is crunchy, dirty and quick."

"What you nourish yourself with is not important?" Regina asked, intrigued.

"Of course it is. But its what needs to be nourished first that takes priority."

"Sadie's is nourishing connections and friends, Harper's the physical need to move?" Regina repeating the intricate philosophies wrapped around intonations.

"Yes. We lost our connections to how we get our food when we stopped growing it ourselves, but we've still connections to each other."

Regina nodded as she leaned back, food appearing alongside a jug and glasses, teetering the table. Robin, Killian and Emma grabbed the cutlery before it tumbled from the table, Robin handed off a fourth pair to Regina unwrapped his from the napkin, while Emma already shoved a mouthful of food in before she reached over and pursued the jug jittering across the table and filled the four glasses.

Regina, though familiar with tapas and sushi train, is surprised by the communal nature and fluidity of the three working around each other to balance the table and eat. She reached over to try the food and relaxed inside of Emma's smile, feeling her confidence the more she managed to feed herself without spilling much.

Emma is showing her parts of this city she never knew existed and was questioning how she lived here most of her adult life yet knew so little. Her life is rapidly evolving, becoming one not simply an obituary marked by career successes. After lunch, she wandering with Emma aimlessly back through the dark corners of the city, looking at the displays in glass framed windows.

"Emma?"

"Hmmmmm."

"Would you like to move in with me?"

Emma stopped and turned towards Regina meticulously, swallowed thickly, before saying "Move in?"

"Yes. You spend all of your time there, we do together. When we're not together, I think of you and because I think of you, I want to be with you. When I am with you, it feels...forever doesn't ever seem like enough time for me to spend with you...I would like to know I get to come home to you, I guess I never want this to be left unsaid. Ever. It can never be too soon. Ever. I don't want to wake up one more morning without you. Ever. I..." Regina, fumbling words nervously, rambled, shrugging against her failing voice, "...love you. I love you with me. But you don't need to answer now. Just think about it?"

"Um..." Emma paused, concentrating on calming the rapid fire of her heart, "...Okay. I'll think about it."

"Of course," Regina breathed out in relief. She hadn't automatically said no. She hadn't panicked.

"I'll talk to Killian. He makes me feel so incredibly guilty sometimes for loving you, as if I failed him completely. I feel unworthy. I've a sneaking suspicion Robin is living at the flat, anyway," Emma's voice was contemplative an echo of itself.

"Really, Why?" this undercurrent simmered as Regina saw the complex ecosystem of emotion webbed beneath Emma stretch.

"The last two times I was there, different things, cups. Stuff. Small things is all. I guess the same small things that make me absent and present at yours. Life."

"You're so very worthy. Why the guilty failure with Killian?"

"Because I've become a ghost in his life. I rarely see him."

"I know you spend time with me at the expense of Killian. You go to the apartment because you feel guilty and then you fight, right? But since Lake St Clair, its been better, yes?"

"Yes, it's been much better, in our own way. He hasn't said anything else, but still. We don't fight, exactly...its like the last thing holding us together, this delusion of living together," Emma sighed.

"Not that I want to pressure you, but if you moved in, maybe you could choose to see him, rather then resent seeing him?"

"You always seem to have a perfectly logical argument to get what you want," Emma giggled, softening her comment as she said it.

"True enough," Regina smiled back, interweaving her fingers with Emma's to continue meandering through the streets, the impervious arch of her lips tracing the perfection of their afternoon.

* * *

Emma pulled on the first shirt she found on, hunger driving her out of the bedroom. The shirt smelled of Regina and made her feel oddly comforted. She rummaged through the fridge, finding nothing exacting until she pulled out last nights Thai food. She found a fork and sat on the floor beneath the sink, slowly eating it cold, watching the half-light ghost into the room. She felt safe, sated. It is unique to her association with Regina, this insidious feeling of contentment, unmasking her at unexpected moments like this, realising she wanted to be here.

A short while later Regina walked into the kitchen to find Emma sitting in silence, eating. Regina came to stand next to her, sleepily rinsing her cup in the sink.

"Why're you on the floor?"

"No particular reason," Emma shrugged, "Its convenient."

"Okay..." Regina switched the tap off as she felt fingers snake around her ankle and lightly up her leg. She shivered as lips gently pressed against the back of her knee.

Emma's warm breath inched against her skin, her fingers drifting both down her leg, over her glittered toenails to tickle the instep and further up her inner thigh. Regina leaned slightly forwards, exhaling. Emma moved along with Regina, kissing further up her leg until she was perfectly positioned. Emma teased her lips against sweetness, lightly flicking her tongue out, tasting warmth.

Regina whimpered, edging her body, suspended over Emma's face, felt finger nails continue to lace up the back of her legs, her lips and breath still tantalisingly teasing, infuriatingly millimetres from where Regina needed her to possess, desired her caress. Emma delicately raised her chin, twisting her pierced tongue to trace the wetness.

Regina shuddered, her legs teetered beyond the edge of what she could stand. Emma raised her arms, surrounding Regina's legs to brace her as she delved deeper, relentlessly pursuing the orgasm ripping through Regina shortly after.

"Emma," Regina whispered, as she slid down to the floor and with Emma's guidance, fluttered to cradle her in her lap.

"Shhh..." Emma murmured as she patterned small circles over Regina's back with her palm. Regina rested her head against Emma's shoulder, waited for her trembling to stop.

"Emma..." who was holding all of her together, "thank you."

She felt Emma smile without having to see her face, "How about I take you bed, hmmm."

Emma lifted Regina's face from her neck to bring their lips together, so softly Regina floated, unhinged, into the chasm Emma tore open for just the two of them. Slowly, tenderly, Regina deepened the kiss even in this awkward position. Softly, Regina pulled back her body, but not her lips, moving to standing them up even when unable to disengage from their kiss and lead them back to the bedroom.

* * *

They were lying in bed and Regina was tracing her fingertips across Emma's back, feeling the smooth warmth of a well cultivated love. Emma, with her head relaxed over her crossed arms, a lazy smile drifting over her lips, relaxed and sated, exhausted after their third round.

Regina felt the bumps in her spine, and worked her way up to where her head met her spine, where her fingertips bruised over the watercolour owl tattoo. Regina began twisting her fingers through Emma's hair, who responded in a soft moan before she lowered her fingers to trace the tattoo on again, "Why an owl?"

"You ask this now?"

"Yes," Regina curiosity tickled at her inhibition, what she really wanted was a answer, reassurance Emma wanted this as much as she.

"Music. At Pacer, when you work the night shift and it is quiet, we just sit around and play music, like that night you came in and had coffee with Ruby. Because its always in those early hours, it was called the Owling, creatures of the night type of thing."

"But to tattoo it?"

"Sometimes the scars on our bodies are the only way to show the cracks in our soul," Emma shrugged, "music means more to me than anything bad that's happened. It filled all of the spaces torn apart. Why not show that?"

"Is that like with Ruby's face, why she hasn't fixed it?"

"Yes. No. Ruby keeps her scars because they'll never fix what she's lost. Belle offered to fix her eye, but she refused," Emma's voice quiet, an undercurrent of sleep lacing her consonants.

"What's she lost?" Regina's voice reflecting Emma's as sleep gently creeps around them.

"More than I have. But, its not mine to tell. She'll tell you in her own time," her voice so low into sleep Regina struggled hear her.

"Is that the only tattoo you have? Does Belle have an owl?"

"Yes, she does," Emma heard Regina struggle to stay awake, whispered "although, I think you would've seen if I'd any more."

There was a definitive silence about her, a solidarity Regina could not resist, pulled her awake. It is tantalising, irresistible, comforting as her desire curled heat inside of her, pushing her to lean over and brush her lips against the sunshine on her shoulder. The smile curved happily on Emma's face, reeling Regina's inner core out as it spooled down the divide and tumbled over Emma. Her lips drifted across skin, down her back, light as a whisper. Emma shivered, but still languished, her eyes fluttering while remaining closed.

Regina kept going, worshipping with small increments, all the way down her legs. A soft giggle escaped Emma as she reached the inside of her knees. Emma is a revelation, a delight of steel and vulnerability, strength and discernment. Encouraged, incredibly wet, Regina pursued the flesh embodying her love, igniting her passion, whispering, "All for you, it's always for you, every fibre is for you."

Drifting to sleep within each others arms, unconscious comfort overwhelmed them. Regina woke hours later, thirsty, and unwound herself from Emma's limbs, and walked out to the kitchen.

Moments later, she heard soft bare foot fall on the golden wooden floor behind her, and her heart immediately quickened half a beat as a smile edged across her lips. The air flow changed subtly, lifting the fine hair along her arms as the scent of vanilla lifted to her nose.

A body breezed behind her, slender arms curled around her and a head gently placed between her shoulder blades. The weight comforted her, buried her pain, bloomed her love. Part of her unhinged and floated within the weight of love gathered between her shoulder blades. She slowly turned and found lips waiting, pulling her own in, drawing her back to bed.

Regina followed the weight of her love, the deranged passion calling her, gathering her desire between her thighs to flow from her, unstringing her love to grasp Emma within her, unclasping her mouth to trail her body, worshipping her as she drew her nipple inside and sucked, her fingers fluttering everywhere until they found Emma inundated, anticipating her touch.

Emma's scent left her intoxicated, unable to contain her desperation for Emma, writhing beneath her. Emma would not give up, would not loosen underneath Regina's incessant touch, and pursued her, wanting her own taste of perfection.

"Regina..." Emma panted, "...please..." clawing Regina up "...look...at...me...I want to see you..."

Regina's fingers continued curling roughly into Emma as she tore her mouth away, releasing Emma's clit with a soft purr, trailing hot, sticky kisses up to Emma's face, looking into her fiery eyes.

Regina quickened her pace, brushing over where her mouth abandoned with her thumb, causing Emma to shudder and tighten around her fingers as her consciousness and body succumbed to orgasm.

Regina still mostly asleep, the grey murkiness of room shadowed in pre-dawn. A gentle movement next to her became an arm flung over her stomach and body pulling into the length of her own. A soft sigh escaped her lips as Emma murmured into her neck, her nose running against her pulse increasing.

Regina moved her arm around the sleeping Emma, smiling into the drift back to languid sleep, content she is trusted enough by the body snuggled in her arms.

* * *

Killian is where Emma always remembers him being, stretched out on the sofa, asleep. This apartment already transposed for Emma. Once, it reflected what she gained, reflected her bond with Killian. Her façade is cracking as if glass, revealing in the gaps how well she learned to hide rather than to live.

She slipped past the sofa and to the door of her room. It required a full body push, the wood long since warped beyond the capacity of the frame. The room contained twisted sheets cast over an unmade mattress, a pile of clothes indistinguishable in shades of black and a stack of used and faded boots jumbled in a corner. She had no other furniture other than the mattress.

Emma sat on the bed and unstrung her knee high boots, unknotting the laces as her mind drifted to Regina with her enchanting voice and her enchanting life. Emma knew she was unconcerned about the changes in her life with Regina. She knows she is defiantly in love with Regina, desired it to be love with Regina. Desired love.

The enticement of love in her life is concerning, a worryingly easy exit from the darkness she had always embraced. And from Killian's. She texted Ruby and an hour later they were sitting at Antique Atelier, twisting their food as they chatted about Regina.

"She asked you to move in?"

"Yup," Emma scrunched up her nose, "I'm there all the time, anyway."

"Yes, you are. So what is the problem?"

"What if I...what if I am not enough?" worried wonder snuck into Emma's voice.

"What you do when she asked?"

"What do you mean?"

"We all went out last night. You'd recovery with Killian and Robin, this afternoon, right?"

"Yes..."

"She asked you after?" Ruby continued, "While you were window shopping?"

"Yes..."

"Then?"

"We went back to her place."

"And?"

"Had lots of sex. What's your point?"

"Did you panic? Run away?"

"No..."

"Everything matters. Actions, however infrequent and perfect, are not enough when words are never spoken. Words, however beautiful and supplicant, leave savage reminders that while we may worship them, specifically those three magnificent ones, there absence of them is murderous. Perfection lies in that helix bound bond of actions and words. Sometimes, jumping is an act of trust: in yourself to jump and in someone to catch you," Ruby smiled at the hitch in Emma's throat.

"Who is jumping and who is catching?" Emma whispers, knowing that Regina stocks her favourites from Ash's, carves her a space in her life, tells her every single day of the love she has. Regina, in turn, has heard Emma's compositions, still in infancy, being built for her alone and her record collection growing exponentially.

"Hopefully both. She jumped by asking you. You will by saying yes. The catching is in the outcome."

"I cannot live with this kind of love. Its so intense, irredeemable."

"Love should be irredeemable. This kind of love is magical anarchy — a force that plunges in and disfigures your life. We already have this reckless disregard for our own lives, otherwise you would never take this risk to begin with," Ruby shrugged, "We've both loved being out on this wedge of sanity, staring into the abyss, only your luck had Regina stare back it can't fix all of those scars, but it will allow you to release the trauma. But it can't unless you choose it. One can only hope for that kind of intense insanity."

"I feel the abyss mocking me utterly, whispering an echo of itself, jump. She allows me to think of a future. It is terrifying and I don't want to let that go."

"Then don't," Ruby smiled as she reached over to squeeze Emma's hand, "You love. You are loved. Enough."

Emma walked out to the living room in an opal black maxi dress with intricate lace bodice, the skirt flowing around her legs to the floor. Her hair is controlled against her head, a clutch resting perfectly within her hand. Turning, she stopped disconcerted fluttered over her face at the look on Regina's face.

"Regina?" Emma said as her dress swirled around her before settling against her, "What is it?"

"You look so beautiful," Regina whispered, walking towards Emma with a tender expression.

"Thank you," Emma breathed out, "You look quite stunning yourself."

Leaning into Regina's arms, basked in the comfort. Regina wore a tailored tux with no undershirt, so the v dipped against her cleavage, fine stiletto heels allowed her to tower over Emma, who nudged against the divot inside her neck, brushing her lips against the pulse point hip-hopping underneath.

"Every time these little moments come, I think you can not get more perfect, yet here you are, slaying me every time," Regina's voice jittered with the flutter of kisses Emma is persistently placing down her neck and chest before pulling away, causing her to moan and shudder at the loss.

"We'll be late if we get distracted. We're expected." Emma smiled.

"Yes, we will and we are. And I do very much want to see if this years corporate liaison did her job efficiently, and filled all of those silent auction slots," smiling cheekily, Regina leaned in for another kiss.

Emma drew back, seared heat passed between their lips, "Perfectly, of course."

"Seriously, the both of you need to be less chilled."

Emma laughed at Maleficent's input, answering lightly, "Like ice, baby."

Mulan walked out with Cruella to a chorus of giggling voices, "What's so funny?"

"Not much, just how these two can't keep their hands off each other."

"Yes, I'm sure we all remember that time well..." Cruella smirked, snickering, "and, really you both look amazing."

"Mmmmm," Mulan leaned over and swiftly kissed Cruella, "Remembering exactly what?"

Cruella swatted Mulan, "Early days, you know..."

"We need to go," Maleficent said, walking to Mulan and Cruella, joining their circle.

Regina sighed as Emma walked out to the ante-room, and picked up her own clutch to follow the disappearing vision. The elevator waited as, Emma silently watched Regina approach, while the trilogy walked around her into the elevator.

"I love you," Emma mouthed, surprising Regina with her oblique openness.

"Thank you," Regina said next to her ear, when she was close enough, "same. I will show you later how much."

They rode the elevator down and walked out to the waiting car, talking the half hour trip to the Mai Sans Centre in relative silence, until they pulled up to the steps.

"It's time,"Emma said under her breath.

In gala's prior, she had gone with Ruby after setting up the entire day with other volunteers. Today, she had only spent the first half of the day setting up the largest ballroom, displaying all of the auction donations she had collected.

Various season tickets to sporting and arts events were mixed with avaunt guard labelled clothes and specialist goods like the ones the trilogy donated. Tickets for the event, Ruby's domain, sold out in pre-release.

Emma is already taking the only date she ever wanted and the trilogy as exciting companions. Arriving yesterday, they kept Regina entertained while Emma was setting up. She herself had had not time with Regina over the day, and relished being able to spend the night with her. She stretched and curled her arm into Regina's, as the five of them entered together, greeted by Snow and Charm.

"Emma, stunning as usual. Regina, you look amazing."

"It's easy when you supply my clothes," Emma leaned in to kiss Charm on the cheek and switched with Regina for Snow.

"Ladies," Regina turned, "May I introduce Mulan, Cruella and Maleficent."

"Hello," the three said in unison.

"Charm," Emma indicated, "and Snow."

"Pleasure. Thank you for your contribution. We'll catch up once we finish here?"

"Okay," Emma grasped Regina's hand, pulling her into the room, now mostly full, seeing the trilogy follow them, calling, "we're at table nineteen."

"We'll follow," called Mulan, seeing Ruby already at the table, texting.

"Is Ruby wearing a ball gown and boots?"

Emma unreservedly laughed, "Ruby could trip over her own feet, so yes, this is safer for everyone."

"Ruby," Regina called, walking up to the table.

"Hay, guys," Ruby jumped up and hugged Emma, fluttering her fingers at the rest, "so glad you're here. Why are you guys so late? People wouldn't stop coming over and talking too me, just because my table is empty."

"Ruby, seriously, they all talk to you because they know you. Its been a long day, hasn't it..." shifting around the table, leaving two spaces for the eventual return of Snow and Charm.

The night ran beautifully, delightfully, dancing and dinner and raising just under two million for Smash Punch Woman. It is close to two am when there is only Emma, Regina, Ruby, Charm and Snow heading for their waiting cars to return them home.

"Where are the three?" Snow asked.

"Went home hours ago. They're not used to late nights," Regina answered over Emma's head, rested into the curve of her neck, arms linked around each other.

"Thank them again for their contribution. They were the third highest earner."

"Oh, no! They don't like loosing. Who beat them?"

"Weekend at Callister's and dinner for eight at Karaleigh's."

"I can see this turning into a competition."

Their car pulled up and Regina nudged Emma, whispering, "Babe, car's here."

Emma twisted and hugged Charm, Snow and Ruby, "Bye."

"See you."

"Night Baby Girl."

* * *

"Do you have to go?" Regina asked tracing Emma's back with her fingernails, eliciting a soft moan.

"You're asking me not to do charity?"

"No," Regina leaned over and kissed the owl tattoo on the base of her neck, "I've alternative things on my mind."

"Sure you do," Emma laughing as she sat up, "Stop it. I'm going."

"Okay, then," Regina fell back down to the bed, pulling the pillow over her face.

"Why don't you just come to Ash's after? We could eat?"

Regina moved the pillow so an eye was peaking at Emma, "I've that conference to attend..."

Emma pushed her as she climbed over her and off the bed, "Then why...you're so facetious. I'm having a shower."

"I'll join you."

As Regina climbed into the shower, Emma turned to face her, "You remember that question you asked me?"

Regina nodded slowly, water cascading over her face, watching Emma intently.

"Yes," Emma said softly.

Regina read her lips before making out the sound. Relief tumbled through Regina, as she pulled Emma in and ensnared the curve of her bottom lip between her own. The delicate balance hit hard against Regina's and liberated all of her disquiet, knowing her love will be encompassed within this future.

* * *

Emma moved in on a Tuesday morning. Regina was grateful for work at the office, as she could leave Emma the space to move in. She had the entire day to integrate herself into an environment of her own making, anchoring her presence.

Regina thought to clear out space in the wardrobe, left to her to fill it with the small gathering of items she had, and in the giant bathroom, left half of the wall length vanity for her. She even had, now, her own desk in the library/study hybrid, waiting for her to claim it as her own.

She loved the study, as Regina believed books are reflections of the body, sentences the veins and chapters the heartbeat pushing rhythm around the body. It was Regina's favourite space, as she explained that words are blood, giving of themselves in all ways. The story, though, is the soul set loose and bound together in this room they both adored.

She used the car Regina had sent for her and only needed that single one. She wore torn off jeans cuffs and an old band shirt with more holes then not, the first she had purchased with a pay check. This shirt travelled through her street days and Ingrid's wealth, and now to the excesses of her own heart, to here, this space of infinite welcome. She couldn't even wear it to work anymore where a certain casual aesthetic applied, yet today, on the day of her moving, it felt perfect, the thread of her journey plucked to here.

She had been so unsure of this, of being here, of this type of place again. Alone in her ratty old shirt and falling apart jeans and unhindered by Killian, she swiftly unpacks, quicker than she had packed. She walks around in the silence, jumping at the ring of her phone with an unknown number. She lets it go to message bank. She circles back to the living room, then into the study, lying back into the wide, heavy couch, grateful she had no furniture to move.

Floating loose, her deconstructed history falling around her, without a culture yet still hanging on by the thinnest of threads, she dozes off on the sofa, relaxing into the sounds of her new home. She spent so much time refusing to be attached to anything, any one that she missed all of this beauty.

Emma loved how extravagant their love is, inspiring both of them to break every rule they had had. Regina breaks her open as if Emma herself is made of eggshells, and she falls asleep knitting them back together.

Regina sounds through the door, calling Emma's name as she threw her keys into the side table bowl and leaves her bag next to this, calling again as she searches through the apartment until she sees a delicate leg balanced off of the study sofa, and an asleep, stretched out, unencumbered Emma. In the right light, every the mythical can be real.

"Emma," her voice is so low it vibrates through her body as she leans over the slumbering form, genuinely happy to be sharing her life with this intoxicating, exquisite beauty. She is all at once overwhelmed by the ferocity of the love she feels in this moment, finding Emma here, home, staying. Regina picks at the edge of the hem of her thread bare shirt, privileged she was able too, here, loving this absurdly beautiful creature, "Emma."

Emma blinked, softly moaned and moved to sit up, bringing her arms up to rub her eyes, her fingers brushing Regina's arms entwined in her shirt, insistent, "Regina?"

"Hello," Regina viscerally reacted, knowing she had masterminded this brilliant hostile takeover, sublimating Emma's reticence of moving in and she leaned in and drew their lips together.

There is unexpected violence in the way of their love, the way they love each other relentless and restless, devoted. Shivering against this, Emma reached in and shucked Regina's jacket off, her smile turning savage against Regina's lips, caused a shudder in return and wasting what is left of her shirt, quick rendering her topless, passion intoxicating them both.

Regina surged forward, landing them both back on the couch, landing exquisitely on Emma as she pushed inside. Emma arched back, the brutality of Regina's entrance leaving her defenceless against this rawness chaffing against her soul until her world exploded, rendered her blind and unable to remember how to breath. Collapsing to sink into the couch, her breath gently came back as her vision stumbled into grey, shadowed and hooded, before inching to colour, unsure.

"Regina..." Emma, horse and scratchy, still wearing the shape of teeth marks across her abdomen, mutters, her voice full of promiscuous promise sent shock waves down Regina's spine. Regina ducks her head into Emma's neck, attempting to calm her racing breath and jaggard heartbeat.

"I'm beyond ecstatic your here," her voice comes out in hazardous little breaths, treasuring the nail marks scratched down her back. She didn't want to die without scars permanent marks of their love.

Emma tensed slightly before manoeuvring Regina gently beneath her, resting her down on the sofa and placed slow, delicate, kisses on her, revelling in her own desire for Regina, spending time lavishly on her love. Regina craves her affection and is rewarded greatly.

Emma loves the taste of her, deciphering their story within the soft caress of her fingertips, the truth of their love in the warmth of their body heat. Her voice is muffled against Regina's skin as she says, "I love you, I love you," over and over again.

She runs her mouth down Regina's hot body, kissing shin before licking further down, sliding her tongue gently against her clit, swirling around to soak her mouth in her heavenly taste, nudging her nose deeply, her own mind drunk on the scent as she felt Regina convulse around her and her entire mind released control completely as their bodies tensed and slackened together.

Of this, their extraordinary ordinary exquisite happiness, she is sure of her movements again, of tasting the desire thicken again, pushing Regina again until her bones turned to water and she heard her cry out incoherently. Emma lengthened her body against Regina's, tasted her salty skin, frequently filling each others arms, singing a song on her breath.

* * *

She had finally left him. It is absolutely irrecoverable as he stands in the doorway to her empty room, absent now of her possessions. Killian cannot pass the threshold to her room, so stood back and closed the door. He couldn't follow her, not this time. Her path right angled away from his and he was bereft. The apartment smells stale, she hadn't really been here in months and had only then ever really returned to salvage cloths.

There is nothing here she wanted now, the apartment pathetic in a dangerous, violent suburb. She had discarded him like the damaged goods he was for someone so unlike the two of them. Every breath they had shared, shaped them, tangled them together since childhood and he knew their was no reason to alter perfection.

He already knew he didn't know how to live without her, yet Robin was a kind of distraction, alone and craving his attentions, wanted already to move in, take a place that could never be empty or filled. He decides to do the best thing he can think of, the truly kindest thing and finds his bottle waiting.

* * *

"I've something for you," said Regina walking into the kitchen, still elated at Emma permanent presence in her house over the last week.

"Really? What?" Emma, sat cross-legged on the stool eating breakfast at the table and reading the news on her phone, looked up, "Why am I getting anything?"

"Because I wanted to and because I can. Because I saw this and I wanted to see the both of you together," Regina walked in from the office, carrying a case with a distinct shape. Emma lifted her head and watched as Regina completed the half circle of the table and placed the case on the table.

"Regina?" Emma gently unfolded herself, looking cautiously at Regina, placing her bowl over the glass covered mahogany table, "What have you done..."

"Most recently you. Now, this."

Emma unclasped the metal latched and opened the case. The world quietened as she ran the tips of her fingers over the curved wood and she whispered, "Its Zhu Ming-Jiang."

Emma lifted delicately and held the weight, balanced it against herself. Emma frowned, tensing as she placed it back in the case and closed the lid, pushing it away from herself, distrusting her own place in time, "I cannot accept this."

Regina reached out and pushed it back, "Yes, you can. Wait. There is something else."

Regina, in love with the sight of Emma's lost fascination, slipping over to the couch and picked up a long box. She handed it to Emma, "Here."

Emma pulled off the smooth cardboard lid to reveal inside a new bow. She lifted it from the sheltered synthetic cloth. Regina placed the last item on the table, a wood bow case, before she sat again, watching Emma. Loving her.

"Regina. This is too much," Emma looked finally away from the gifts, "Really. Far too much."

"No. No they're not." Regina's voice sang the spaces between Emma's heartbeat, her love a lullaby to calm her down, "I'm glad beyond words that you're here. You're worth it. Its kind of a moving in present."

"Regina..." Emma acquiesced, releasing uncertainty by closing the slight gap between them and reaching into the infinite space Regina offered, looked at her, exposed and open, "...why? Why get me something this beautiful?"

Regina felt the exposure Emma offered, left it floating between them and released herself too, "Because I saw it. I come into Pacer last week to see you briefly and caught part of your set with Ruby, but it would've made me too late to stay. It reminded me of Violet Pier and Antique Atelier. You amaze me. I guess I wanted...I'm so in love with you and seeing you play and it opened my heart even more. I keep loving you more every time I see you, and feel you. I was then where I never am, you know down near the docks at the new conference space. They've this little instrument shop. This was there. I still could feel you playing, and I wanted this for you as soon as I saw it."

Regina sighed everything out to Emma, she felt cathartic even though she released more then intended to, but now she couldn't stop, "I get to wake up every morning in love. I've never had this before. Even better, I'm pretty sure I get to wake up loved and I've noticed my rare classical music collection is getting excessive. I didn't have any where near that amount before. I would give the world to you."

"And I would burn it all down for you. Thank you," Emma leaned forward and kissed the soft edge underneath her chin. She knew Regina's love of rare classical music, especially experimental conductors, one she could defiantly facilitate and had unleashed Beast to collect as many as she could. She had intended to sneak them into her collection, however one hundred and twenty three new additions are hard to hide.

Regina drew a sharp breath in as Emma kept muttering in between kisses against her neck, murmuring thank you again as her lips moved to the swallow of Regina's throat, her fingers entwined the robes knot, gently teasing the cloth lapels apart, grazing her fingers over the heated, dark skin pulsating under her touch.

"Can you please play for me?" Regina felt Emma slowly twist off of her lap, gently teasing her heat away, "Please."

Emma padded softly over to the table where the violin still sat and gently lifted it out, caressed the golden cherry gloss as her eyes glazed into dreams. Lifting the bow and swinging her arm around as she nuzzled the rest underneath her chin.

Emma strung low, raising the heel of her feet as she slid into the depths, anchoring all of herself together to cast everything away. Her fingers found a rhythm she is comfortable with yet her soul toyed with the balance and leaped over her desire and amplified their love until these senses overwhelmed them and they drowned in each other. She cut diamonds from their own ashes.

* * *

A frantic alarm reaches her, followed by six texts, panicked and desperate. Emma rang Beast, who reported that Killian was in hospital, and Robin had attempted to call her but had only gotten through to Beast. With deference to the family only protocol, the hospital would not allow Robin into his hospital room.

She scrambled out of bed, randomly pulling clothes on, grasping at scattered objects. She needed her socks and was hunting for her shoes. Regina woke and, after years off emergency medicine, was awake and absorbing Emma's controlled panic. She negotiated its release by accompanying what she could, already on the phone as they were driving to MARH, talking to the doctor attending Killian.

Regina assembled the news before presenting it to Emma as they walked into the hospital. Alcohol poisoning, still not awake and potentially may have aspirated vomit before he had been found by Robin. He had had his stomach pumped and a brief moment of lucidity before lapsing back into unconsciousness.

She spoke with Robin, who was frantic with being unable to see Killian and Emma barely acknowledged him as she walked past him and into Killian's room. Regina remained glacially calm, negotiating staff as she entered his room after Emma and stood aside too perused his medical charts. Beast beeped on her phone stating Ruby and the ladies were on their way.

"Emma," Regina looks up to see tears in Emma's eyes but still steel streaked within her, "Emma?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to make some calls. I'll be back in half an hour."

"Yes. Okay."

"I'm sending Robin in."

"Yes. Okay," she sat straight and stiff in the chair next to his bed, contemplative. Regina walked out to the nursing station. Emma lost track of time, of how long she could stand to watch him unconscious in this bed, his face bruised at the edges. Regina returns to find Robin sitting, unacknowledged still, off to the side. Emma is stoic.

"Emma?" Regina pitched her voice low, "he'll be fine."

"He wasn't fine, otherwise he wouldn't be here."

"He said he was fine," Robin whispered, "When I fell asleep this morning."

"He would say that," Emma's lips twitched, "and I'm complicit in this, not you."

"Your not complicit in his temper tantrum, you're only complicit in your own survival."

"How can I not be complicit? I left him."

"I was with him and I didn't see..." Robin whispered.

"No, you didn't," Ruby walked in, fury radiating off of her, "this is why we cannot have nice things. I mean, honestly, its as if we're all suffering from chronic melancholy, traipsing around into whatever hovering paranoia leaches into us. This is so irritatingly typical of Killian."

"Rubes..."

"Nope. Not now. Beast said Belle, Snow and Charm are close to being here. Regina, Snow are bringing food. Emma, you're to call when ready. Killian is going to be fine. You are not carrying any more scars for this child, he'll need them for himself to heal."

Emma tensed under Regina's hand, resting on her shoulder, yet relaxed again as Ruby's voice softened, "As chaotic as our family is, we'll always be a choice of necessity over biology. No one needed to tell us we belong together. Killian knows this, and therefore did not need to end up here."

Silence settles over them again until Regina leans in and kisses Emma on the cheek, whispering she is going to update Beast before slipping from the room.

"He is how he is because I left," the wilderness in Emma's voice scaled the walls, "he never coped very well, did he? But, I think he needs to start. I haven't made the wrong decision. We need to shatter the bonds of our lives to rebuild them, and recovery is always a baptism of flame and fire, a way of fixing the unfixable, by killing all evidence we existed at all."

"Yeah, but what was he trying to kill?" Ruby's voice tipped down, stumbling in only a manor hospitals inspire.

"No. No him. Me. I've only been gone a week. We were meant to have dinner next week."

"I know. All we can do is talk to him again."

"How far was he gone that he couldn't just yell at me in person? Why is the beautiful always tempered by the stupidly ugly. He seemed to be dealing with it. Better, understood a little since the Lakes district. Why this?"

"Why not this? Its rather..." Ruby laughed softly, "Killian-ish?"

Emma snorted, "Yes."

"He doesn't drink," Robin whispered.

"He doesn't with you?" Ruby looked to the boy hidden in the corner.

"No, never. We worked and did Rainbeaux stuff," Robin sniffed again, tearing, "apart from those three days away, we work and volunteer. I only just moved in."

Regina walked back in, followed by Belle and the ladies and over to Emma, "He'll be released in the forty-eight hours."

Belle reaches in to her bag and pulls out a round, thick disk, branded with Beast's mark and activates it before continuing, "We'll come back in and take him home."

Emma went to shake her head, however Ruby grasped her hand and squeezed, "Come. Beast will monitor the situation. You need sleep. He won't be released without you."

Ruby stood, extracted Emma's hand from Killian's and half pushed her at Regina, "Emma, he's like glass. Once its over, he's done. Go. Please."

Charm and Snow extracted Emma and embraced her, "Darling. Let him sleep of the sedatives. We'll come back."

"Don't…"

"Be rational?" Charm said.

"Babe, love, he is okay. Really. He'll be here until we retrieve him," Snow shot a warning glare at Charm, "You've been here over three hours in the middle of the night."

Emma pulled back and nodded once and said, "Beast?"

"Always," her voice different out of the disk, squeakier.

"Robin?"

"Of course," Robin nods.

Emma nodded once again and slipped out, her hand secured in Regina's. Their car ride home is quiet, as is the elevator. It is not until the lock latches into place that Emma slumps into Regina, flattens her breathing, draws all her pain in to a scattered mess and sobs, shuddering. Regina holds her and waits until she pulled out of the embrace and stands.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes. Ruby is right. Killian has a tendency to leap off of cliffs without looking. Yet, once he lands, he is done with whatever made him jump."

"Are you sure your okay?"

"Yes. Its been the same conversation over and over. This means, hopefully, its done with."

"Okay."

Hours later, Emma watched as Regina blinked the shadows of sleep from her eyes, she felt like a beautiful lie against the painful truth, "Morning."

"Hay," Regina could read Emma's voice like sonar, always aware of the blips signifying depths and hazards, knowing that she would willingly be crucified forever over these things of beauty, "Morning."

Emma leaned in, ghosting a kiss, withdrawing quickly, prompting Regina to shiver, as she spoke, "My love, what is it?"

"Thank you," Emma's eyes swam, pooled deep sanguine green.

"What ever for?" Regina kept her voice steady, calm.

"We're living together. Us." Emma' voice filled with wonder and love, uncertainty and nervousness.

"Proudly," smiling, Regina leaned in, "indefinitely," sealing her words with a kiss, "absolutely."

Emma fell into the kiss, fell into Regina's offer, revelled in her own desire, "You're all I can see and I can't even regret that."

* * *

"Do you have to work nights?" Regina asked, running her lips against the white pearl flesh of Emma's inner elbow, "Do you need to leave so early?" she murmured, kissing between the bottom two ribs, floating in the wilderness.

Emma sharply breathed in, Regina's tenderness released the deliberate feel of moistness between her thighs. Gently, Emma slipped out of Regina's kisses.

"Yes. I like working, and no we're not discussing it again," Emma by this time was grinning,

"I'm having dinner with Killian," mumbling, quickly kissing Regina, only to kneel over her to escape off of the bed.

"I'll miss you..." Regina muttered following Emma into the shower, madly loving easily.

Emma had instituted a weekly dinner with Killian before their shifts, since the hospital incident. They still dinned as a group however this twinned time is what both of them need, still a perfect synchronicity between them, no longer the lost children, they are growing beyond the damage, almost feeling like pieces of this world.

Their lives once diverged, split halfway between abandoned history and not quite living their future, a game of survival against the twisted coil of their selves. Emma only ever learnt to scatter the brokenness between them and shelter the remains, yet Killian is learning how valuable it is not to dwell on the dismembered parts but to assemble their history and leave it in the past.

As Emma called the car service, her mind drifted back to Regina. In spite of their deliberate love, she keeps fearing for something, anything to fall apart, conflicting with realising that if it did, she would die trying to put it all together again, to catch them both. She stands against all she ran from; communal mind frame and singularity leader prophet.

Emma never to be a follower again, never to sequester herself from life, realised this love is not a weakness deserving of her ignorance, but should be feted and nurtured. Her relationship with Killian evolving beyond the inter-dependency of their youth, further from the birth putting them together and the trauma etching each indelibly on to the other, however indelicately.

Killian is freed from the sacred belief they were destined to be together, the claim of and too each other holy ordained. Trapped by the severe indoctrination of their youth, it took outsiders not to break the bond but forge a new alliance. Meeting for dinner at Ash's, the place as intertwined within them and as much a home for them as anything else. Snow brought them their standard order and left them to their matching voices, melting around each other in a language beyond Snow's own.

Returning to the apartment close to nine am, suffused morning light fluttered past the curtains relaxing her as she walked in to find Regina asleep on the sofa. Even fatigued and unconscious, Emma smiled at the regal disposition, innate sophistication.

She saw every single part of Regina and loved her intricately She lay asleep in last nights clothes, day old hospital smell falling off her.

"Hay, babe," gently nudging at Regina, "babe?"

"Oh. Good morning," Regina pushed herself up, blinking her eyes, until she focused them to collect Emma's, connecting them with devastating depth.

"Common on, your all stinky. When did you get called in?"

"A while ago. Midnight, I think. Got back at seven-ish I guess."

"Okay," Emma knew better than to ask about a night call, as the last and only time she did, Regina mentioned pulling crushed skull fragments out of brain matter. Although not particularly squeamish, the image left her unsettled, "Shower?"

"That would be lovely," Regina shifted and stumbled to her feet, and walked towards the bathroom.

Emma began to remove Regina's grotty clothes, haphazardly pulled on from the dirty wash pile, peeling off the layers of the outside with their clothes, climbing in together to shed the world with a kiss. Fresh and clean, Regina followed Emma as she wandered out to the kitchen to have breakfast, relaxed in fluffy robes. Moving around the kitchen, their fatigue sifting through into each other.

"I've applied for leave," Regina said.

"Why?" Emma asked over the noise of her moving cutlery moving around in the draw to find the ladle.

"I decided something important."

"Okay," Emma joining Regina at the table, "So…"

"I want a holiday. We haven't been on one together. We don't see each other nearly as much as we should and we moved in together to do that. We deserve time and our shifts keep us away from each other and…" sliding a small square box across the table with a trembling hand "...I thought that I would give you this."

Emma, surprised, whispered, "What does this mean?...I only just moved in..."

"Emma, look at me," Regina's voice tender, "Please..." Emma raised her eyes to Regina, who continued, "what do you see?"

Emma frowned slightly, "You. I see you. Always you."

"True," Regina knew Emma is the only one who ever truly saw her for who she is, "but if you look into my heart, what do you see?"

"Um..." Emma unsure of Regina's direction. By this time, Regina had pulled the ring from the box, an owl embedded in the design. Emma smiled as she saw it.

"You. You're in my heart. I love you, seeing you here it's as if the entire universe conspired to help me find you. People always talk about firsts, but falling in love for you is my last. You're it and I don't ever want to let you go," Regina opened the little velvet box as she was speaking and slipped this ring onto Emma's right hand, "this is a promise. To us. Our future. Of what is to come. And once we are ready, that can change hands."

A fire of a smile burned at the edge of Emma's lips as she sighed in release, Regina accurately describing how brilliant their ordinary extraordinarily connection, "I love you. Of course."

"Of course?"

"Of course. I cannot wait for the whisper of your voice, the tickle of you breath against my neck, the smile on your face. I love you and I don't know how else I can be but here, loving you. When is this leave?"

Regina relaxed noticeably, as all the constriction burning within her was liberated and she leaned over, kissing Emma feverishly, without shield, exposed in a raw new state. Emma, her scent invasive with her proximity, smelled of home and Emma lost her space in the world, yet found her beacon.

* * *

"What is that?" Killian tugged at her hand

"Jewellery. It's not like you can miss it."

"Emma, isn't that the wrong hand, according to convention?" Ruby commented dryly, sitting around in the apartment with Killian and Robin, "Details."

"We've plans. In eight weeks, we're having Regina's birthday dinner at the Eloise Club and a party at the Mai Sans Center. The next morning we will go to Amberlai Island for three weeks and we'll see you all when we get back."

"But…"

"No, Ruby. Its a promise, Okay. Nothing major," Emma smiled, knowing it is in fact everything, "Its a promise, and love is our extravagance and not much else. We're what matters."

"Who is coming?"

"You three. Mulan, Maleficent, Cruella. Regina's mother. Belle. Charm. Snow. Henry," Emma shrugged, "you know, friends."

"Music?" Ruby asked

"Xaidia."

"Okay…they agreed to play?"

"Yes. Please, G, don't be offended. I want you to have a good time, love, with me."

"Perfect," Ruby hugged Emma.

The four celebrated, going to Malaree's, swinging until daylight broke and returning to the penthouse Emma shared with Regina, Emma dumped her friends in the spare rooms. Waking close to lunch, she found a note from Ruby, explaining she woke within the silence and went home.

Emma rummaged in the fridge to find already prepared food with a note struck to the top in Regina's cursive, I love you. Warmed at Regina's consideration, she clattered bowls and cutlery onto the center bench, started to fill them with food.

"Emma. See Tyl esk," Killian said walking in the kitchen larger than his entire apartment.

"Lei es tee plli," Emma pushed a bowl of mixed greens across the bench. Silence fell again. Emma was struggling, Tranqi becoming a second language, a forgotten constellation in her memory, "Killian, its a kitchen, eat your Lunch."

"It is not just the kitchen," Killian spun his bowl around on the glossy marble cover, "Its you. And salad?"

"What do you mean its me?" Emma scrunched her nose, as she sighed, "that's not fair about the salad. Its the only food she keeps here, and she did make it for us."

"This place is fabulous. You look comfortable," Killian smirked, looking at the bowl, "don't you live here too?"

"You said it was me. Why is it me?"

"We're separate again. I guess I just didn't expect it to be by choice..."

"Killian..."

"You're different..."

"I fell in love. Shoot me."

"You chose to change. Not just that...It's okay. I'm okay with it. Really."

"We keep having the same conversation. We're not the only ones who are broken."

"Yes we are," Killian thought back to his foster mother. Grey was phenomenal, negotiating an intensive six month education program so he could began to speak with discernment in a language he finally understood. His attended school with his foster sisters, Anza and Callerey, and found being surrounded by children his own age a transcendent experience.

He still desperately longed for Emma, yet flourished within the structure and cohesion of the family unit. Still, the guilt of running, of abandoning his true purpose and being unable to fulfil his greatest potential, remained. To atone for his behaviour, he gave up the one thing attuning him to the world: music. He could not forgive the bond broken irrecoverably.

"No. No we're not, Killian. Our experience is specific, but we all have trauma. Ruby does. Robin does. Regina does. Why are you still so resistant to this? You're not loosing me."

"I'm resistant to change," Killian eyed his bowl suspiciously again, bursting into laughter.

"After all your hissy fits..."

"Ruby pointed out a few truths. I realised a few of my own."

"So..."

"Reality helped," Killian pulled at some of his salad.

"Reality?"

"We're never going back to the community. We crossed our bridge and set in on fire after us and I'm scared to loose...we've nothing to show but the memory of fire, the smell of smoke, and each other. One of us had to release just a little, to grow up, I guess."

"Yes, I know."

"You were always the leader. The first," Killian said.

"And you were always the crazy one," Emma giggled.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. We've spent so much time stomping cracks deeper in our lives, chasing some elusive goal neither of us could define. We shouldn't continue the legacy of the community. We should love. And be loved."

* * *

Amberlai Island is one of an archipelago with far more infamous neighbours, torn between fending off tourists and making a profit. Owners of Ava Arcadia Resort blended exclusivity with rustic aesthetic, old world money with new world adventure.

Emma gently rolled over, breathing in as the white sand scratched at her sharp hip. As she settled on her back a gentle hand ran over her stomach and a shadow fell across her face, eclipsing the sun. Regina leaned in to Emma's smile, running her fingers lightly up her arm, both responding like breathing.

Regina relaxed back down on the beach towel, their bodies contrasted, resting into each other, parallels of the sun, complete, relaxed, comfortable. It's these gentle things working their way into Emma's heart that soothed her terror. Regina's hand on the small of her back, her breath subtle on the back of her neck whilst they slept. The quiet but efficient integration of Regina into her life and with her family, cohesive blending together.

Days melted into three weeks of rest, replenishment and bliss, their souls connecting in the calm between them. Three weeks shattered by a suit with a badge and worlds of attitude. A knock broke their nap, their quiet half sleep.

"Sky," the rusty, smoke damaged, whiskey soaked voice spoke when she pulled open the door.

"Rumpelstiltskin," a frown and a defeated sigh, Emma exhaled his name.

"May I," he asked, indicating entry.

Emma shook her head, "No," indicating her hastily pulled on robe to Rumpelstiltskin, "an hour."

A swift, almost imperceptible nod, accompanied a turn back towards the elevators. Regina shifted towards awareness at the knock and quickly over to curiosity at the voices. Regina sat up at the close of the door, then stood, pushed herself off the bed, beautifully naked.

Emma, stood still at the door her blank expression staring at it. She had to let Regina inside of the impenetrable walls she built. The more she tried, forced herself to communicate with Regina, the more she felt like retreating. She knew this would be one of those times an obvious, vital imparting of her past is necessary.

"Emma?" mumbled Regina, "Love?" in a softer, gentler tone.

Emma turned and looked towards Regina, but did not see her, her eyes unfocused and concerned.

"Sorry, Regina, sorry," Emma said as she burst into tears, her body shuddered, weakened, slacked against the wall and wilted to the floor.

Regina strode the few short steps, sifted to the ground, encircled her arms around Emma. She held her, time silent, waiting, paused, encompassed in orbits of warmth as Emma unravelled into Regina, gradually relaxing. Emma ghostly whispered, "sorry, Regina, sorry," again while Regina waited for her to speak.


	10. Rumpelstiltskin

X Rumpelstiltskin

"That's Rumpelstiltskin. He's my liaison, my handler. Remember I told you we ended up with social services? That's when Federal Security Agency found out who we were and considered us assets," Emma spat, derisively laughing.

"Assets. Not just, informants on secrets the government felt it should have. We spent so much time in therapy, but we'd always been cloistered within Tempenka and the communal secretless environment that the concept was lost on us. They could only attempt manipulation based on their own cultural heritage. My own experience was so far beyond them as too be alien. They were trying to break us, damage as to gain absolute compliance. We'd no basis for comparison for what FSA wanted, only a hunger for being able to be free, make our own decisions. We were watched, interviewed. I think at some point even when we were legally 'out' of their abuse, FSA felt we could still be spies for them and they never gave up," Emma breathed, jittery, until it evened out.

"We were forced to participate with some aspects, taught them Tranqi, liaised with linguistic professors. FSA never changed their blunt stupidity, always wanted to keep us under control, attempted to assert their authority by legally obtaining court ordered control. We were lucky to escape from Tempenka, luckier still to escape from them. For us, we were risking our souls escaping Tempenka to only be thrown back into the fire, a circle of punishment for survival. FSA thought to tap foster carers to keep us under control," Emma laughed, bitterly.

"It didn't work out the way they planned, though. Gretchen is the one who hired Nan and Killian's foster parents were adamant we were capable of being functional members of society. They diversified our private tutors with an education to include all social, financial and legal responsibilities, and we both maintained employment. We were responsible and participated in charity. Our therapists concurred. The outcome was a year of supervised independence, continued therapy and handlers as we determined to leave our foster parents to create a home of our own. After that year we were officially released on our own recognise. FSA kept the observational handlers, though, waiting for anything that could, that would, prove us incapable just once."

Regina gleaned some of this history, but to hear the full extent appalled her. Emma stopped, twisting her fingers around each other, looking hassled and angry, before continuing, "I made it clear when therapy cleared me, I would not communicate with them or participate in whatever their schemes. I didn't want to associate with FSA, but I fought so hard to not be controlled. I didn't want to be a puppet. I guess they held out hope, but we'd such excellent foster placements they failed themselves. I haven't seen that particular Rumpelstiltskin since that first year," Emma rubbed swollen, red eyes.

"I'm sorry I didn't say," her ragged breath still hitching, her throat swelled and sore at the memory of their constant presence in her life, "I'd only hope they'd leave us alone. I knew they were watching, following, hoping we'd return to Tempenka so they'd have an excuse to raid as we weren't willing to spy for them. The agents, the Rumpelstiltskin's used to came to Pacer often until Beast banned them. I'm sorry I never told you."

"Tempenka?" Regina realising she didn't know the extent wrapped up inside this woman she loved. She relaxed into Emma's pain, waiting for her voice.

"Tempenka is the enclosed community I'm from that FSA has held a file on for over one hundred years, since the delirium caused by jazz aged bootleg alcohol fuelled a dangerous underground economy. Two suspected bootleggers involved in the accidental burning of a valley, six villages and the death of eighty people, fled into Tempenka. Seventy five years later, two eco-terrorists who blew up a military facility, the eighteen injured simply collateral damage against the destruction. It took FSA three years to track them to Tempenka, but also left them unable to definitively prove if the pair joined or just used the closed village as a way station. Without proof, they were unable justify entering the compound," Emma swallowed thickly, drawing herself further together.

Her voice is jagged, "I remember how bloated the file was, but full of incomplete information, transcripts in a language no one understood, open cases on people who may as well be dead. Tempenka was classified a potential domestic threat, even with nothing recorded against them in the eighty-five years before the bootleggers joined, nor in the seventy-five years until the newest theoretical converts. There's nothing, again, until Killian and I escaped and presented FSA with their first real chance to gain significant insight into the inner working except that we escaped the team watching the community, crossed multiple state lines and disappeared here, lost from them for over a year."

"Rumpelstiltskin?"

Tears continuing to fall as she felt the burden pressing, enclosing her, "Rumpelstiltskin is what we call our observer, a code name. That person behind it probably has a name, but we don't care. They know we call them Rumpelstiltskin and never correct or offer their real name. When we met Ruby, she introduced us to one of her favourite gene's, vampire's, and her favourite conspiracy theory that novelist Bram Rumpelstiltskin exposed the secret that they actually existed in real life. The constant presence, even at a distance, of the secretive federal agents stalking us became the revelation of a conspiracy no one believed."

Regina held her and waited until she stopped. Regina stood and pulled Emma up, looked her in the eyes, and firmly said, "I love you. Let us see what he wants."

Emma nodded numbly, understanding Regina, without hesitation, assisted with a burden she could not understand. They showered and dried quickly, dressing solemnly and waited for the knock on the door. Regina walked the few steps over and let Rumpelstiltskin in. He sat on the chair next to the small, rounded table. Emma and Regina sat on the foot of the bed, unsmiling.

"I'm sorry to startle you. This is important. Jones has disappeared."

"When," Emma asked sharply.

A moment of confusion passed Regina's face before she realised it was Killian's last name. They were twins. She quickly filtered the information out.

"The night before last. He went out clubbing. He got into the taxi with another male, approximately six foot, three inches and of a similar age at zero-four-three-zero. The taxi never dropped them off at their apartment. He has not attended his shifts at Malaree's nor contacted them. We have been monitoring the community, however he has not arrived at that destination. Has he been in contact with you? When did you last see or speak to Jones?"

He observed quietly, as the pairs case was intriguing. Initially, child protection services did not flag them as anything unusual. The FSA only been notified when certain hot words were entered pertaining to the runaways were hit upon, including the vital clue of language spoken, Tranqi.

Emma became furious, outraged, her voice escalated to shouting, "How could you lose him? You stalk us relentlessly and you LOST him?" Regina rested her hand on Emma's tense, agitated shoulder as she continued, "How dare you insinuate he returned to Tempenka. You know how we feel. You need to stop assuming...we would NEVER go back," she spat the last words out at Rumpelstiltskin.

Emma breathing began to tremble as she began twisted her hands together and said, "We had dinner the night before we flew out. I texted him after we checked in, and everyday. We Iviedioed last Sunday and the first Friday we were here. He was not clubbing, he attended the Esther Ball," Emma looked at Regina, receiving reassurance in her realising that he hadn't been in contact today before continuing, "his boyfriend Robin is the other boy?"

"We have been unable to confirm the identity of the companion as yet, however it is most likely Robin, who has not returned to work or the apartment."

Emma stood and started to pace, a feverish expression on her face. Rumpelstiltskin waited. Regina watched. Emma turned, frustrated, "Why?" again, in anger, "How can you not know?"

"We keep very little tabs on either of you. You made you decisions remarkably clear," Rumpelstiltskin paused, stood, only to sit again, before stating, "We have been intercepting letters from Jones to Blue."

"Tempenka," Emma automatically corrected, shuddering at his gravelly voice's use of the divine name, "since when?"

"About a month after you moved out and Robin moved in."

"Intercepted? This is a little intervention is it? Were they sent on at all? Or is that too much intervention?"

Rumpelstiltskin shrugged, "They were copied to Jones's file and sent on. Would Tempenka accept you back? Jones?"

"NO. We've been over this," fury entering Emma's voice and adjusting her demeanour, "they couldn't. It'd rupture the tranquillity of the place. We're tainted. We're shunned. We, who were destined, fled perfection for sin. You know all of this. Your reports state exactly what Blue said when she was informed of our capture by the state. We had to translate the message," Emma frowned, "You're still monitoring them?"

Rumpelstiltskin nodded. The linguistics professor who had worked with Emma during those years she had been with Gretchen and built a comprehensive vocabulary of Tranqi to translate transcripts of conversations recorded from the community still worked for the FSA.

"Did they get the letters?"

Rumpelstiltskin shrugged.

"I know, they never open or check the mail at the gate."

"Yes. We know," Rumpelstiltskin replied with a tone bordering on recrimination. Regina looked at him scathingly.

Emma nodded, "Yes, I remember mail only ever being taken directly to Blue. Which means you know that. You just want to know my reaction," she grimaced, "what was he writing for?"

"For his parents to be in contact."

Emma smiled maliciously, "It would've been Robin, Rumpelstiltskin. You know this. If you were any good, you would know exactly who sent it. You're intentionally baiting me, torturing me. What exactly is going on?"

"No. I am not baiting you," knowing he was, "Our analysis concluded the same. Jones did not know what Robin was doing."

Rumpelstiltskin is frustrated at her reticence. The FSA simply wanted information, and these two were perfectly placed to re-infiltrate and establish an accurate level threat level from the community. Yet since taking them into custody, they remained taciturn and non-communicative. In spite of the experts brought in, this pair was, still is, unbreakable. No amount of separation, threats or coercion were able to infiltrate their bond.

"Of course not. Killian is generational Tempenka. We were raised without parents. What is going on? Outside of your Tempenka parameters?"

"That Jones and Robin have disappeared."

"Oh. So Robin's the other, then? I've told you all I know," Emma held outright dismissal in her voice.

Rumpelstiltskin nodded curtly, "I know you are meant to fly out tomorrow, can you stay here until we find Jones? Just in case it is something we should be concerned about?"

"Concerned about what?"

"In case it is targeted."

"Targeted? From whom exactly? We're only ever targets of your department? I think you should concentrate in finding Killian. Tempenka has nothing to do with this. They do not leave that farm," Emma started to clench her fist in anger, "You come here, bringing your stupid, arrogant prejudice. NO ONES ever left that community beyond sunlight hours. NO ONE. That place," she spat, "is at least a thirty-two hour drive, or seven hours of connecting flights to the city," Emma was infuriated, "Which you'd know from your own reports. You job is to find Killian. Not make unfounded accusations. We battled and fought not to go back to that place from idiots like you, who only ever wanted to place us back and sought to discredit us when you failed. You've absolutely nothing to say on when we return. I'm not your asset. Get out," Emma pointed furiously at the door.

Rumpelstiltskin stood and walked out the door. Rumpelstiltskin remembered clearly, the betrayal of this entire fiasco. The FSA brought in a perceived easily coercible civilian consultant who became increasingly difficult to manage before she exited the case and employed a civil rights attorney. Nan and Gretchen effectively broke the deadlock, manipulating the situation to effectively and efficiently outmanoeuvre them.

The pair understood first how the components of Tempenka had formed the children beyond conventional control and conspired against the FSA to gain control of the situation. After that, the teams management of the children was corrupted by public backlash of the perceived abuse of minors.

This lead the pairs legal team to be able to leverage their fundamental need to understand Tranqi, against the pairs access to real lives. Gretchen fostered Emma, always the strongest twin. Trying to exploit the weakness in Killian, he held beyond what they thought he could, as traditional interrogation techniques did not work on either of them.

As the door clicked closed, Emma burst into tears. If Rumpelstiltskin had come to her, she should be terrified. Regina stood quickly and wrapped her arms around Emma, who withdrew to draw all of her unravelling back into herself. She shifted from Regina's hug, wilting to sit on the bed.

"Love is never free. I wanted it to be, but it always costs me greater than I could give. Leaving the community cost me my own divinity, language and home to become merely human. Loving you has cost me Killian. The balance is unjust and hateful, I'm loosing more than I can ever gain. Love is never equal, it can never be," Emma shame and guilt pervaded her, controlled her, lived within her, weighing her down.

"I ran from my responsibilities as the future leader out of fear and lead Killian out of a world he loved. Killian wanted the life offered within the community, held no curiosity of the outside world. I couldn't contain my infinite desire to know, to seek, to understand. I just wanted and wanted, enough to flee. I understood Killian's disorientation of this world, felt guilt for where I led him, yet without him, I'm only half a soul, a fractured shell," shuffled in time, she remembered perfectly, yet forgot sporadically, truth an envy of memory and heart, a whisper of the selfless to the protection and detriment of her own self.

"I'm overwhelmingly responsible for him, and I'm to blame for what our life tore irrevocably inside of him," Emma learnt there was nothing else for problems but to run and stay in the darkness, and when unable to run, she stood to take it all for the both of them, took all the brutal lessons. She learnt, though, and found Snow and Charm, Ruby and Belle, while Killian desperately clung to her alone. She drew together a shadow of herself and Killian sheltered beneath it, all her energy in surviving their existence.

Emma whispered as her voice hitched, "If FSA have lost him, he must be dead. How could they loose him? I don't understand. Its never happened before," Emma looked through blurry eyes at Regina, whose compassion seeped out of her and coursed through Emma's veins. Her voice hitched as she rebelled against this look, whispering, "I'm too broken to be loved."

"I love you," Regina pulled Emma in, wrapping her arms around her, "and I will love you like I loved you since I met you — infinitely."

"All I feel is cracked..." Emma, sobbing, curled within Regina, felt the love ebbing through their skin.

"...and I'll continue to pour love into all of them..." Regina held her, this unbelievable creature, "...I'll not let you fall. I'll catch you and bring you home. I desire all of your broken things. You're so very worthy of being loved."

Emma cried, loosing herself as she free fell further into oblivion, hearing what she felt; home. Regina raised Emma's hand to her lips and kissed each finger individually, before moving to her wrist, slowly and delicately moving up the soft skin beneath her arm.

"I love every single part of you," between kisses, Regina murmuring her devotion to Emma, "Your wounds are you. I love them. I love you."

"You know what frustrates me the most is Tempenka, while defiantly exclusionary to the outside, is decisively non–violent. Holds no weapons. They're a simple farming community rejecting the callings of sin, delineating the evils of society from themselves. They're not secretive, simply selective. They don't want what the world offers. You either reject it all or embrace it all. They stay at the farm as it's the only place they control, the only place they feel safe. One hundred and fifty years of non-violence, yet they're viewed as a threat. They don't believe in a mythological doomsday, or in culling yourself. They glorify life. Why FSA insist Tempenka is anything else is beyond me. Its not like anyone has left before and condemned them. We were…young and ran as an act of rebellion against growing up. If it wasn't for where we came from we would've meant nothing. I don't understand why they fear without provocation."

Regina said nothing, let Emma drift with her emotional Landscape. Far too much had been interfered with and inferred. Regina resolved to distract Emma the only way she knew how, and gently kissed her. Emma, for lack of anything else that would make her feel less like she was alone, pulled open Regina's shirt, and kissed down her body. The mind works with it's own brokenness, suffering in the quietness, initiating raids on others, Emma is lost and furious and vicious and sacrifices her own sanity to unleash her savage lunatic to ravish Regina.

She let her mouth fall into Regina's taunt glistening, grasping her nails against muscles tightening along a spine-arched. Her teeth ran a curved length before her tongue fled from her mouth and into the sultriness too fuck the pain away. That night and into the following day, Emma locked herself into a spiral of sex and sleep.

The monsters in her past are real and heavy and twisted beyond measure and Regina packed and pulled Emma out of their room and back through airports and planes to their home. Maleficent, Quin and Mulan picked them up from the airport and stayed with them, hovering around attempting to assuage the tension. Ruby, Belle, Snow and Charm all were waiting at the apartment, their voices hushed and sympathetic. Emma couldn't look at any of them, and went past to the room she shared with Regina and closed herself off.

* * *

"Emma," Regina said, following her into the bedroom.

Emma rolled away from her, not wanting the conversation, remaining silent and inanimate until Regina retreated back out. In the silence, Emma became restless and unleavened and took a sneaky way to escape the apartment, hearing low murmured voices drifting from the living room. This is one of the first things she did when she moved in, learn all the escape routes. She is gentle with her freedom, uncomfortable with the rush of noisy people continuing with their lives.

Emma reached the dark, lopsided unit block, and stomped up to the apartment. It was unchanged since she left, just smelt more of boys. She walked to their room, with a scattered mess of clothing on top of a mattress much like the one she had left here. Emma crawled on top of the pile and pulled up a shirt smelling of Killian. Emma lay their, intimately drowning in the familiarity of his scent. She did not notice the sway of the day, nor the noisy silence of the cities heartbeat bleeding out.

Regina noticed her gone just over two hours after she left, and asked the others to stay when she told them of Emma's absence. Regina knew where she had gone, felt the link between them flicker as she weaved her way to her lover. Regina found her, lost in the darkness and called Ruby when she is unable to gain any effective response. Emma, loose from even her own voice, floated I a place where even she could not reach. Ruby's frown knitted her scars from her forehead to her chin in parallel lines, branded as she was by fire and metal, when she picked up Regina's call.

Ruby answered, "You found her."

"Yes," Regina said, "exactly as we expected. That's why I called"

"Okay. Give her the phone." Regina walked over to Emma and placed the phone against her ear.

"Emma," Ruby said.

"Rubes?" Emma hadn't moved, her voice crackling with pressure.

"I know. There's nothing you can do there. Nothing at all but unbalance yourself, alienate Regina and hamper what Belle and I have in place."

"R…"

"I don't care, Ems. I understand. You love so hard it breaks you a little every single time anything goes remotely wrong, but I don't care. Killian's the priority. Beast's infiltrated the cities CCTV and police systems. We're retro-tracking his phone. Talk to Regina. I'm doing what is needed to find Killian."

"R…"

"No, Emma. You can't tear anyone apart. Not me. Not Regina. Not Charm or Snow or Belle. We're here and we're helping. You're absolutely not allowed to be irrational, vicious or mean right now. Fall apart all you want, but that's it. Come home. I'll speak to you soon," Ruby hung up.

Ruby had spoken to Belle immediately after the police and had interviewed her. Beast's security software unrivalled and Belle unleashed it, subverted, into the cities law enforcement. Emma looked at the phone, focused on Regina, waiting, then sat up.

"Ruby said to go to home."

"Okay."

"She said there was nothing I could do but wait."

"Okay."

"Belle and Beast are doing what they can."

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know. Its waiting either way. Circles are pointless," Emma shrugged, "I'll be haunted until he is found. I'm sorry I've been cruel to you, Regina. I'm really sorry."

"Thank you," Regina said, "however you weren't until you disappeared."

"She also said we should talk."

"I'd like that."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of Course."

"Can you tell me about you?"

"Yes," Regina lent over the bed, taking Emma's hands in her own, entwining their fingers, and pulled her up, "When we return home and we're ready."

* * *

Regina walked out to the living room, leaving Emma asleep in their room, moving to sit on the sofa.

"Tea? Coffee? Whiskey?" Charm asked.

"Thank you, no," Regina sighed, leaning back and sinking down like a dead weight.

"How're you holding up?" Charm voice is honey warm, trickling around Regina.

Regina shrugged, closing her eyes, "Better then how Emma is."

"This is not a comparison deal. How are you?"

"Exhausted."

"Whiskey in the coffee, then."

"No. Its okay. I think if I start on whiskey, I may not stop and as exhausted as I am, I'm still too wired for coffee," Regina swallowed around the lump of emotion hurting her throat, "Where is everybody?"

"Belle and Ruby are at Circe, something about Beast and something else, they may be installing her here. Quin and Mulan are lying down, Maleficent and Snow are in the kitchen. I'm concerned that with the amount of food they're cooking. It looks as if they're planning on feeding the city."

Regina chuckled softly, "Sounds like Maleficent."

"Mmmm, and Snow. I think they may be feeding each others crazy."

"If that's how they're coping, let them be."

"Cora and Nan are getting along remarkably well."

"Mother is here?" Regina frowned, "She handles emotion by fighting. Both of them do, and they're less attached to us then to their careers. Is Henry still here?"

"Roped into helping Belle and Ruby, I believe."

"Gretchen?"

"With Nan and Cora."

"How did you survive?" Regina asked so lightly Charm read her lips more than hearing her.

"Snow. Always."

"What happened?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes," Regina closed her hand over Charm', "You understand Emma. You carry damage, as much as we all do and she chose you to be her mothers. She listens to you beyond all others."

"Okay. I think. You would rather know the cost of the damage, over the rewards of love?"

"I see the consequences of love is this extraordinarily family you have," Regina squeezed her hand, "I feel the love."

"Yes. Our stories are each others at his point," Charm looked at their hands, "Cressida and I may've been identical but were extremely different. Cressida joined a band, toured the world, slept on beaches, revelled in alternative living, always the one living with a reality outside of the main discourse. I studied, researched and built, manipulating and controlling reality. Yet, there was always a definitive bond snaked between us, we didn't need to speak with each other, implicitly understanding the truth between us."

"Like Killian and Emma?"

"I suppose. They were trained to be close. Cressida broke multiple parts of her hand and arm whilst on tour and returned to the city, pregnant, with Saber in tow, buying the basement record shop to occupy her time. I was hibernating at university, twisted within the confines of medical robotic engineering, building intricate robotic equipment, experimenting with miniatures. Saber was a quiet delight, winding magic at home and where he worked, at Mathilde Research Hospital, as an equipment engineer, fixing the softly beating machines. Cressida had Belle, a perfect infant born without sight and raised her like anything sacrosanct, with devotion and love."

"Belle said she has robot eyes?"

"Yes. Saber and I made them for her. When Cressida found Granny's Smash Repairs, a café tucked within the folds of the city, much as her basement was, a life long history wove itself into the future. Cressida had an unwavering connection to the music and rhythm of song and humanity, felt for the destitute starving off the bones of the city.

Snow, seeing the problem of survivors becoming scavengers along with the sallow, waxy skin of the starving, fed them. Cressida assisted in this new venture, and tumbled us along with her. Snow and I spent so much time together, we became entwined, realising with the help of Cressida and Belle, our love mutual and unstitched our loneliness to knit ourselves together," Charm smiled before dropping her voice.

"Over twenty years ago now, when Snow's mother Eva was sick. Lee gave up their business to care for Eva six months in, after she become unable to leave home. Saber was the medical technician who helped them set up at home, worked the night shift for them. Eva took five years to fade and finally relinquish to her illness. Lee, while not alone in her grief when Eva passed, fell into a darkness she could not escape from, and came apart at this deeply personal loss. She lasted only eighteen months, until heartbroken, died. Snow watched Eva and Lee fade," Charm quieted for a moment and leaned into the couch.

"Loving her changed everything. My apartment had been as monochromatic as my life. Once she...once I let her in, I evolved, becoming golden and full of autumn colour and spring sensations. She is my favourite scent, changing and softening everything, surrounding our lives. She improved everything, linking our lives and infecting others with music, food and almost the worst of all — hope. My life filled with Snow and Cressida and Belle," Charm stiffened again.

"That's exactly how Emma makes me feel," Regina quietly said, "how everything was dull and she is an explosion of colour."

"It must be a family thing, these women of ours. Six years ago we shifted our schedule's to be with one another — an extremely rare occasion for both of us, but we forged the anxious rush of the world for each other and stayed inside our circle binding our love. Mid-morning, we began gently shifting into the day, shifting around each other, implicitly harmonic when the internal phone rang. The desk clerk told me the police were here. I still remember their sharp knock echoing through the apartment. Two officers delivered terrible and horrendous news, violating the core of our lives, silencing our world. We went to find Belle in the Pacer basement, the electrical hum vibrating through us, making all the fine hairs on my body stand on end. I didn't want to tell her, but Belle felt the distortion emanating from my soul and I felt her crack, split across tension, I instinctively leaned forward to catch her as she fell, and failed, followed her into an entangled mess together on the floor. They'd been driving," Charm wiped a tear out of her eye.

"Belle stayed here for a while, her bedroom a refuge. Belle, hibernating in her room with Emma and Ruby, encircled within the darkness, began to renovate the basements of Pacer, changing the lowest level to one that could contain herself and Beast, refusing to leave the Circe Tower apartment in the meantime. I had Snow with me and very slowly, life began to repair itself. We shelter each other. All of us."

"That is the truth right there," Regina gently said, "circled by love, we heal. Its quite a history."

"Yes, it is. All families have one. Every single one. I love ours. We love ours." Charm said, "I'm sorry I've been weird with you."

"You possibly understand her more than most."

"We all understand, doesn't make it okay," Charm countered, "and I've gone about it the wrong way, finding out if you love her. I would've seen it if I hadn't been so belligerent."

"I mean you loosing Cressida and Emma loosing Killian. She is so frightened she can no longer feel him."

"We've all lost more then we ever thought we could possibly bare. We endure because we want to, because we need to, we choose each other so we don't have to endure any of this alone, tangling our lives and our love. But we did and we do and we will together."

"She is...its horrible to see her in this much pain when I love her...she is dissolving before me and I don't know how to help," Regina brushed tears away from her cheek.

"You know that's not true. She seeks your comfort, takes relief from your presence, loves you even in her darkness. I know. I felt Snow when I could no longer see any other. I saw her when the world was grey. Emma sees you in colour."

"She sees all of you, too."

"Yes. But that doesn't mean she doesn't see you. You need to stop feeling inadequate, otherwise it will filter down to her and you'll just infect her with it," Charm freed her hand from inside of Regina's and wrapped her arms around to hug.

"They're always patterns to our behaviours. We're all puzzles, fitting together, shifting our lives until we find our places," Regina's voice is muffled, drifted as she forgot the rest of it.

"We draw lines in the sand, thinking they're drawn in cement. When we're left alone, it solidifies us into these worlds of immovable marble, beautiful but freezing. Other times, important times, storms come and thrash this sand that we think is marble with water and waves, scour us clean, wash away all that dirties us. We wake into a new, spectacular dawn and simply glow. Some things are broken, some torn away, but the gift is that which is torn away can be rebuilt on again, added to. We can choose to be broken or to be loved, and even more perfectly, we can choose to be both. We're our own revolutions, battling our demons until we find our own compromises, our own rebellion. We owe ourselves our own consciousness," Charm continued the quote, as she felt the shifting in Regina's face, "When did you last sleep?"

"No idea. I'm asleep and I'm awake."

* * *

Emma stood at the threshold, looking to the living room, feeling a tiny bit better at the sight. Regina and Charm are outright asleep on the sofa, their heads tented together over their slumped bodies. Snow's feet are tucked up underneath her, head leaned over a book. She could hear muttering from the guest room, pretty sure Beast is one of them.

Maleficent, Quin and Mulan sat together at the table, armed with the vicious nonchalance of experienced gamblers competitively playing, as Emma walked to Snow, "Hey."

Snow jumped and dropped the book at her feet, "Shit, sorry."

Emma, inflecting her voice down while scooping up the book, "Its okay."

Snow moved over for Emma to curl up next to her, dropping her arms around her, "Baby girl."

"Mmmm," Emma dipped her head into Snow's neck, a rare event she had not done in years, since the night she sliced her leg open and needed to hide her pain from Killian.

"Anything you need?"

"Just this," Emma whispered.

The trilogy, watching, turned back to their card games, leaving Emma nestled with Snow. This is how all of their tangled collective love divides into the universe; imperfectly perfect.

* * *

"Mapped it," Beast shimmered, haphazard in the light.

"Can we do it here?" Ruby asked, sitting in an alcove in Regina's apartment, the only space not invaded.

Belle sat in her corner chair, uncomfortable and hard, tapping out commands, "Video and 2D imagery, yes. To get full 3D imagery, we'll need to go to the Aunts or the basement."

"Will it be better in full imagery?"

"I don't know. We've gathered as much as there is to find. From CCTV, GPS and satellite. From the club to Ianthe are clear. The internal camera on the cab is broken. I can track some movements from cell phone coverage, mostly texts and calls from Killian and Robin to event participants as both of their location data was disabled, and blocked."

"How much is actual useful information?" Ruby looked up from her position on the floor.

"Nothing substantial enough. FSA have assisted RCPD, and most of this information they either have or deduced," Belle shrugged.

"You'll see more in 3D," Beast stated.

"Yes," Belle stood up and packed her laptop, "lets go. We'll walk."

"Of course," Ruby pushed herself up.

As they walked out, Henry was loitering in the shade, sipping from a coffee cup, "Hi guys."

"Henry," Ruby nodded but they didn't break their step.

Henry fell in line, "Please let me help."

"Fine, but either be helpful or quiet," Belle had no tolerance for babble.

"Okay."

"Beast?"

"I've cleaned up as much as I can of the CCTV from Kahtya and Violet Pier. Its terrible, but the best I can do. The times here are approximated."

"I thought you were installed at Regina's," Ruby asked.

"Preliminary instillation. I've been waiting for upgrades to the building systems before more will be done. Regina was a little apprehensive, however can see the security integrity I can maintain."

"It was for Emma," Belle said, "the FSA are concerning when it comes to Emma."

"You look so hurt she didn't just want Beast. She is such an anomaly for anyone outside of the Pacer bubble," Ruby nodded at the door man as they entered Circe, and crossed the lobby.

"Yeah, but she's mapped practically the entire route of Killian's disappearance. She'd contributed the most."

"Stop grumbling," Ruby soothed, "they can't get to her, okay, really, they can't take Beast away. You've made sure of that, and they don't have anyone smart enough to steal her. Renegade hackers never work for the feds. And they lost track of Killian."

"I know, but we've the most info, and we still have nothing."

The aunts apartment was silent, and echoed the noise as they dumped their bags on the ground and moved around the living area.

"Beast?" Ruby called as the room brightened with artificial light splattering out of Beast's camera's, creating a cityscape, contours of the city, the club, the taxi, as Beast starts the progression.

Henry stood in the middle, frozen at the vertigo she experiences being inside this living video. Footage shows Killian and Robin leaving the club, entering the taxi and heading west on Despine Avenue. Beast includes annotated text appearing in the air above black spots and reconstructed parts before she starts narrating, "the CCTV ends here, and mobile reception places them here, here and here," pulsing dots appear on the map, the last one near the industrial embankment adjacent to Violet Pier.

"Violet Pier usually had awesome CCTV?" Henry asked.

"Yes, its substantial, but is internally maintained by the companies, so generally covers their own building and car parks. I've checked all of that that I can and only have what I've shown you. Police have been focusing on this section," Beast highlighted the three block section against the river and focused on it.

"How's the investigation?" Ruby asked.

Belle snorted, "PD aren't doing much, standard missing person procedure. The Bingo Preacher is actually pressuring he investigation. FSA is taking is seriously, and have the Rumpelstiltskin team suspended and under investigation."

"I've looked for patterns, attempted to correlate data, but there is nothing," Beast stated, "nothing to indicate where Killian is. The CCTV gives us the route, but nothing at the end, where it counts. All of this only indicated our own illegal behaviour."

* * *

"How long were you gone?" Regina asked as Snow pushed her thick black coffee over the bench, "I mean between leaving Eloise and coming back?"

"Twenty years. I built a reputation and was always offered another job, an enticing new experience in a new country. Until Eva became sick, I had never returned home. Lee and Eva always came to me," sadness seeped into Snow's cadence, "When Eva was brought home, Saber helped Lee with the burden of watching love die. I didn't realise Saber was Cressida's husband, or Belle's father until much later. It was always Charm — Belle— Cressida."

Snow's voice shattered as if glass, swimming in the clatter of the kitchen, and the house moving around them, "I was here two years before I converted Granny's to the café. Cressida, Belle and Charm came opening day. I've seen Charm ever day since, through watching one mother die and then the other. The progression of Eva's illness is what started my odd, random hours and why I always ended up Granny's in the phantom hours of the morning. In all of this, I saw Charm' face beyond all others. I wouldn't have survived without her, her love, she held me together when I fell apart, loved me when I couldn't. Charm gave me myself when no other noticed, never failed in her capacity to love. Every morning during those desperately dark hours, I woke in her arms. Every day we're unable to be apart. Life is dull without her."

"That's what she said about you, that you held her together when Cressida died."

"That's what love is, holding all the parts together when she cannot, like you for Emma. Like she did for Killian. Like she will for you. We all get each other in death. Its this, the trauma and hope, death and love twisted together," Snow's voice drifted with the weight of the conversation.

"Sounds tragic, death bringing us together."

"Charm and I began within the noise of death, yet death did not diminish us. We don't survive the dead, we visit within them in the space between guilt and memory. Belle, this ball of love between us, stretched and burgeoned our love, expanding around the girls and Killian, expands with you and the trilogy. Now, go. I have to start breakfast for real."

* * *

"I see what Emma loves about being here," Ruby is sitting in the greenhouse, staring at the colour surrounding them.

"It is beautiful," Regina replied, "I've relearnt its beauty again because of Emma."

"You got used to this?"

"I guess so."

Regina noticed the small cylinder sitting in front of Ruby, saying "Beast, you can come out. The others will be okay too, you're not gonna scare them."

"Probably will."

"Not really," Regina looked over to Ruby, "Emma said your scars have a story."

"She didn't tell you?"

"No. She said its your story to tell."

"True enough, I guess."

"It's from when you were a child?"

"Memory is a funny thing. I was abandoned at the racetrack. They thought I was only a couple of hours old, no more then 24, yet the first memory I have is of a giant fluffy teddy next to a bright pink pillow. It makes me sneeze, all of those fine little stray hairs in my fist, snuggles at night, giggles at movies. I don't remember their faces, my first parents."

"You're the racing baby?" Regina remembered the news story, the splash of the infant and maintenance over the news.

"Yes," Ruby didn't blink at the epithet, "adopted by Ceara and Ernest Zenobia. They died when I was five. I was placed in the home of a sitar player, Qadir and his cellist wife, Nilaruna. I was with them almost 5 years. We were driving. I don't remember the car accident, only waking up in hospital, unable to see, my head covered in bandages. I remember the hospital distinctly, as I was the center of everything and I got a new teddy bear. When the bandages came off, my face was like this. They never made it out."

"He taught you the sitar?"

"Yes," she shrugged, shivering even in the warmth, "Family is an odd, odd thing. I initially didn't get placed because of these scars, they scare people. They want perfect children, not monsters. I only had a single placement, I was sixteen, just after I met Emma and Killian. I was there for only eleven weeks. They'd several other female teenage children, useful to their very specific business interests. They picked us especially for our brokenness and kept us locked up, selling us over and over again. I kept fighting, resisting, falling into their cycle of drinking, screaming, violence, beatings. They allowed a customer to break my arm and wrist before dumping me at the hospital, left me unconscious in a car park..."

Silent tears ran down Regina's face, not turning her face fast enough before Ruby saw them, "...no, no don't. Look at what I got, Emma and Belle, Charm and Snow. I've my family, they got jail time. I emancipated myself and received a trust from my first parents, enough to get my apartment. Its the first time I understood self-inflicted unemployment could be incendiary and beautiful. They create monsters, we create flowers, etching monuments out of rubble. I won."

Regina still looked mortified, "That's still truly terrible. How have you all survived?"

"It is as it is. What else is their to be? I've more than most in my situation. I'm gifted with my family, such as we are. Not everything is entirely broken. Before Snow and Charm, I didn't think I deserved family, before Emma and Belle, I didn't think I deserved sisters. Musicians don't see this," she waved her hand over her face, "and I can play, and I'm good, too. Music saved all of us. What lies within is the sound you send out, beyond the music, outside the space between what I give and what you take."

Ruby paused, momentarily, to gather the unloved child inside of herself attempting to make her small again, even to herself, especially to herself. She knew death surrounded her to collect a debt she was given at birth, one that marked her soul and left her unforgiving, "Childhood is a disease, adulthood the cure, yet one is the mirror of the other, a cowrie shell echoing the sea inside of eternity, throwing the wreckage of ones own life, the complexity of being both broken and fixed all at once. These scars are simply an echo."


	11. Inheritance

XI INHERITANCE

Emma sat on the bench in the garden. The sky crystalline blue, mixing with the yellow light of the sun, bright. She is offended the day is glowing when all she feels is disconsolate. She hears the noise of life drifting to her — cars and voices and metal — as her head pounds behind her eyes, sketching black spots inside her vision.

Everything is screeching loud, grating against her body. She feet the bristle of air changing and the soft fall of Regina's feet. Sitting next to Emma, offering warm tea, a glass of ice, tequila and a slice of lemon. Steam gently curled out of the mug, dew drops formed against the chilled glass.

Regina's voice a caress, floated to Emma on an undercurrent, "I didn't know which one you wanted."

Emma took the tequila and swallowed all of it, shivering as it hit her empty stomach. She placed it down on the armrest and reached for the tea, slipping the slice of lemon in before wrapping both her bands around it, "Thank you."

After a few sips, she placed it next to the glass. Emma shifted until she is flush against Regina, slipping her head into the crux of her neck, picking her hand within her own, "There's too much noise."

Emma leaned further into Regina as her eyes welled, slipping over her lash and down her cheek, brutally raw to the world, "Are they all still here?"

"They understand. They're family. They care."

"Family?" Emma tensed, went to withdraw her hand, but Regina, swifter, manoeuvred Emma closer.

"Killian and you have history within yourselves. Since you've been here, you know these people are family. You've told me as much, they definitely love you," her voice remained soft, an undercurrent flowing between them, "Snow, Charm, Ruby, Belle, Maleficent, Mulan and Cruella. Even Ingrid, Nan and Henry. Me. We're family."

"They're all here, still?"

"Yes, Charm has private investigations. Belle and Beast are...I'm sure the less I know about what they're doing the better. Snow and Maleficent have taken over the kitchen."

"Ruby?"

"Is helping Belle and Beast. The five of them are terrifying," silence fell between them, noise of the city filling in the gaps, as Emma snuggled back into Regina, enjoying the weight of them, until her soft voice sung between them, "Snow said to remind you of Belle when you first met."

As scattered as the pieces of herself are, Emma knew that Regina would collect them all and give them all back to her in perfect order. Regina shifted minutely and said, "I added this for you, I hope you don't mind."

Emma looked to where she was pointing, at the white leaves and yellow center, speckled blue and silver flowers cascading down from the pot, "No, not at all. I don't like them in bunches, cut from life. Growing them is better," Emma looked up at Regina, "these are perfect, meant to live and grow."

"Yes. Well. I though it time to add orchids," She caressed Emma lightly, "is the moon orchid and is perfect. Maleficent raised it."

Emma, overwhelmed, asked, "Weren't you going to tell me a story?"

"Yes. Yes, I was," Regina spoke into the quiet.

"Come on. Distract me."

Regina wrinkled her nose as she smiled, fluttering her fingers around, indicating the penthouse, "I wasn't always this, my parents were young, underage, living an itinerant lifestyle, escaping a system that mostly seemed to fail them. My father's parents fled one type of oppression for another, languishing against a broken system with broken languages. My mother fled her own immigrant parents, raising children just as lost as they were in a world they did understand. They met jumping through cities big enough to hide them. Until they had me, I guess. They were still underage and under educated."

Regina smiled, remembering her fathers voice tell her this story as a child as she was now telling it to Emma, "Yet, I gave them purpose. Sometimes life events make people become who they're meant to be. My birth did for my parents, young, hungry and fierce. They started an import business. I don't remember what they were importing. My mother was thirteen when she had me, dad a year older. They started the business while mother was still pregnant. She doesn't talk about this period. From what I've gleaned over the years, they returned to her family. They were young but had been raised in this country and held more grasp on the reality of how it functioned."

Regina gently circled her fingers around Emma's back, "My father used his family as much as my mother did, connecting them to the edge of an industry just beginning to boom. My mother used her own extended family to import, from what I can gather, something vastly shadier, potentially illegal. It became rapidly successful, and by the time I started school, they could afford their own education. I would've been about five, my mother eighteen. My mother became a successful litigation attorney, my father an international business consultant. Within ten years, my parents were both wildly successful yet still both in their late twenties. Their careers took over their lives, and they worked constantly. I was raised by nannies and boarding schools. I've been at boarding schools since I was six and I thought them as my home."

Regina sighed, snorted and licked her lips, "over the holidays, when I was younger, I was sent to summer expeditions until I was old enough to attend summer camps, and then it became a mixture of both. I don't think I went to my parents home for six or seven years. I asked my mother why I didn't see them for years, why they didn't raise me. She said they didn't know how and then could afford someone who could.""

Regina stopped, looking out to the sky, remembering isolation and deeply held senses of loss and entitlement. She felt her heart beat rapidly, and her sentences became clipped as a result, "My father died when I was sixteen. A heart attack. I became his sole beneficiary. My mother became the guardian of my estate until I was twenty-five. I didn't find out about his death until six months later. I don't think Cora thought to tell me. I also become co-owner of family property and trusts. My estate was earning twenty-three hundred a week. My parents were very particular about their financial clarity from each other and my inheritance. I think it was a taxation issue. My mother was ruthless with my trust management, and tripled investments by the time that I'd turned twenty-five, she had diversified into property, industrial, scientific and medical programs."

Emma noticed how tense Regina became, and moved them both to lay down on the grass, stretched out against the length of her body, gingerly wrapped her arm over. Regina tensed momentarily before relaxing and moving her arm over Emma's, her fingers drifting lazy circular patterns over her skin as her memory drifted back to days she had long since left behind.

"I graduated high school at fifteen in the top one percent of the country. I was always the youngest in the class and I decided to study overseas for a year upon graduation, I guess as a kind of gap year. Cruella, Maleficent, Mulan and I met at that school. I wouldn't have survived without them. We wouldn't have survived without each other, hijacking summer to spend the time together. Mulan lived in the village our boarding school was in and was the local student on full scholarship with alumni that are bankers, politicians, owners of umbrella corporations owning multiple others. Her family was large, noisy, and poor," Regina flattened her vowels in latent anger.

"Until Mulan cam to school, she shared a room with three of her siblings. The bathroom was always full, the water always cold, food a continual struggle to have enough off. Mulan initially struggled, unable to concentrate and ostracised, she this tiny doll, dressed in torn, faded second hand uniforms bobbie pinned together. Mulan was dragged from the local community as a public example of the school's benevolence and charity, but internally a representation to the student body of what they were better than. After her first summer at home, her family noticed the shift within her, the change in dialect and the syntax of her conversation. Mulan had a choice, as she could not live in both words and survive. She found her way, though, understanding this was her way out, her opportunity to escape," Regina sighed, pausing to kiss Emma's hairline.

Quietly, she continued, "Cruella was an outcast already on the first day of school via the alumni magazine on freshmen, the garbage empire child and teased mercilessly. Her father ran a counties sanitation disposal program. His company grew to include several counties, and they lived in a small village where Cruella attended the local school and was ostracised even there. She attempted to kill herself, and her parents decided to to send her to an out of state boarding school, but she could not to avoid the stigma, as the school was mostly legacies like Maleficent, with her pale, ice hair, transparent eyes and old money."

"I'd freedom from my parents and we didn't really know each other, communicate much or even see each other. Yet, I'd no direction, no idea what I wanted. When I left to study, I took with me the nanny I myself hired. For lack of anything else to do, I took art classes while travelling. I remember how lonely I was. I don't remember the face of my father," Regina's voice dipped to a whisper, a jagged collective of consonants shuddering all over each other.

Her voice dripping in memory, "It was after this study I returned to my parents to discover my father's death. My mother, in her grief, did not think to tell me. For lack of anything else to do, I went to law school. Again, I graduated with honours, the top one percent of that years graduates. I found it a ruthless and distasteful profession. I was at an indefinitive end, young and educated and rich if only on paper rather than reality. So, I fled, lacking a home or a family to bind me together. I spent six months travelling around the country, free finally from the obligation of education and the paid concern of nannies, but not quite free from myself. My mother too busy, as usual, to be concerned with an already overachieving daughter. On paper, I was the perfect daughter of those who were wild too young, however just like I was wealthy on paper, most things are an illusion," Regina's breathing regulated to the weight of Emma's, absorbing the peace of her body.

Regina's voice dropped an octave, "In the isolation of refusing to deal with the death of my father, I drifted among the relics of a culture which discards those who do not participate according to the rules. Mulan came with me on that trip, Cruella and Maleficent stayed in the city, studying. My parents didn't play according to these rules, but changed the game to dominate it. It was a world of the disenfranchised, an emotion I was familiar with. We were all hidden in plain sight, just on the wealthy side. I stayed into the dark, a prodigy lost, all the while knowing it was unlikely I wouldn't be searched for if I didn't return. I hid from everything wrong within my life by abandoning it. I met fabulous people who taught me many skills unknowable in my sheltered life, but life was desolate and lonely, a wasteland of the unfound."

Emma watched Regina intensely fall through the memories, her voice husky yet tender. A gentleness flowed between them as Regina's lips curled up at the edges, "I was at this beach, surfing. When I paddled back in, thinking of how I may just sleep on the beach before moving on, when an out of place car, black and shiny and expensive, puffed up a dust cloud on the gravely dirt road. By the time I ran out of the water, and up to my backpack, my mother stood, silhouetted against the sandy dunes, the black car, the cloudless blue sky. She requested I return to her house."

Regina closed her eyes, "So I did, for lack of anything grasping for my attention or direction. My mother felt she'd allowed me enough time to grieve and I needed to commence my future. She requested a decision be made within the month as to my future direction and if it was unsatisfactory, I would be disinherited. She requested my presence within her house be limited unless I engage my future appropriately."

Emma gasped slightly, strengthen her arms around Regina, causing a slight smile to grace her face, "Why did she bring you back?"

Regina frowned, "Because she could, I guess. I used to hope because she noticed. All of this was once hard, reflecting was be intense and could immobilise me for days. I applied to medical school, eventually specialising in neurosurgery. I worked, consumed by the intricate nature of brain patterns and repair. I studied and researched, wrote papers and topped out again with stellar academic record. I worked and I drifted into relationships but also as soon as out of them, they were auxiliary to my main life and hard to maintain."

Regina's voice lightened, "The four of us, though, became own enclave, our own family. We all felt safe when we disappeared in the Manor, and we discovered the possibility of happiness within. Development of the Manor was slow, meticulous and detailed as Cruella was very specific in her vision, design and implementation. Cruella and Maleficent's lives were peppered with visits from Mulan and myself, through the completion of degrees, internships, specialities and career advancements. Within the noise and the silences, they noticed the understated sigh of pleasure together and shifted into their relationship," Regina truly smiled at the mentions of her friends.

"Mulan worked an eighteen hour day after a sixteen hour one the day before, and was in a taxi, drifting through traffic mutilated by the darkness of night. Two cars slammed into each other in the middle of an intersection the taxi had paused at, then drifted together in a fan of sparkling metal before collecting the taxi and slamming them all into a building. Mulan said she felt weightless for an infinite moment, before she struck the door of the cab, slammed her head against metal, which dazed momentarily, before she jittered into hyper alert as adrenalin flooded her body and dis-embedded herself from the door. The driver was unconscious and Mulan was unable to reach her through twisted metal inhabiting the space inbetween them, so she turned to door, which is when she saw the body pressed up against the window, wedged between the car and the building. He was struggling to breath, fear tumbling out of his eyes and spooling against Mulan, who watched as his life fell from him. Mulan fell into shock, time falling away until she was pulled from the wreckage," Regina visibly struggled and Emma firmed her hug.

"Mulan's body was marginally damaged, mostly bruises and sprains. However, watching the life drain from a stranger cracked her, broke on essential part that held her together. She was in hospital for three days, under observation for potential brain injuries. My mother attended, being the emergency contact for all four of us, as she was the only parent and reasonably organised adult of any of us in the city when we started at university. Her assistant periodically contacted us to update our information. As none of us has had any reason to change this arrangement," a derisive giggle escaped Regina.

"My mother is still the only relative that lives in the city. Maleficent's, Cruella's and Mulan's families are settled, the closest three states away. I was the only one with a parent based here. My mother is only nine years older than the three of them, thirteen years older than me. Mulan quit her job after her release from hospital, and unable to stop seeing death leak from his eyes, Mulan retreated to Westwood Manor. Cruella and Maleficent had been there for sixish years and the manor felt like home — lived in and comfortable — and she felt it sooth the broken parts of herself, the haze of her nightmares reduced. When she stumbled out of the darkness caressing her, she realised life gifted her with opportunity and love," Regina wrinkled her nose, smiling as Emma shifted closer, twirling their legs together.

"I was both focused and untethered, ebbing into a strange and unbalanced hybrid life, spectacular professionally, distant and indiffident personally. It took me far longer to negotiate my own recovery and integrate all this history together. Honestly, I began to develop my own worth by recognise my own passions. Being wealthy and independent allowed me many freedoms that took me years to learn," pausing to relish the love in her arms, acknowledged they are both here because of her life, not in-spite of it.

"I realised the insanity of my own hate, of my own distance. I'm privileged in so many ways and it has taken me to adulthood to understand them. I realised the choices I could make, what I could develop and become. This greenhouse is an example. I gradually started to accept invitations to advisory committees and became a member of several boards, most particularly at my boarding school. I wrote papers and became part of a peer group reviewing papers for publication. I developed procedures for allowing existing extant tissue to remain at a far higher ration then previously when removing diseased or damaged tissue," knowing she did all of this to fill in the lonely gaps, the pre-Emma oblivion screaming her apart.

"This is how I knew Ingrid. I'd no idea she fostered. She is a highly respected forensic neonatal specialist, and consults for various governments as well as teaching trainees with various law enforcement agencies with primary directives regarding the care of infants in criminal cases and the high impact socio-economic development delays in infant care," Regina is silent as she reflected, "I've become much more contented. My mother, still practising litigation, and we're not become much closer as adults."

Regina stopped and shrugged. Emma smiled, pushing herself up onto her elbow and lifted Regina in close, kissing her velveteen lips, slowly relaxing into an extended, delicate tasting of each other.

* * *

Three days later at Ruby's insistence they went to what was becoming a favourite place, CLS Bar, a city institution named, and infamous for, the particularly lethal combination shot of espresso and café liquor.

It's old, warm and a fire filled atmosphere, ancient, intimate and relaxing beyond measure. The espresso – liquor shot combination also branched into various sponge cakes, muffins, even cereal. The pair, highlighted against each other, went inside and found a booth, flush against a brick wall. They ordered and waited it to be delivered.

Rumpelstiltskin walked to the bar, took a stool and ordered a drink. Regina noticed, glancing at the incongruous beauty besides her said, "One Moment."

Emma mumbled her assent yet did not focus her eyes. Regina snaked her way through the chairs to the bar, "What are you doing here?"

"I cannot leave. I am the only one."

"She doesn't want to speak to you unless you have answers," the bartender approached and Regina waved him off.

"I know. We have been looking for five days. No unexplained dead bodies, no unaccounted for stolen cars, no ransom demands made, all stolen credit cards and obvious false names checked out at hotels. Once we realised he was missing, we highlighted to other federal agencies as well as the team observing Tempenka. Five days of nothing," Rumpelstiltskin sighed and sipped his drink before continuing, "I'm her handler irrelevant of whether she wants one or not. I would be here without this. I am to stay visual, as we have to be sure his disappearance is not habitual. I am here for the safety of Sky."

Regina fury burning within her at the overtly threatening behaviour, turned away before adding, "She has a point about your department. If I see you again anywhere near Emma or myself, I will be pursuing legal action. I believe she challenged you successfully before."

"No…" Rumpelstiltskin half-stood, raising a placating hand.

Regina cut him off without hesitation, "I'm not a scared child, nor a traumatised young adult. I do not care for you, or your department. It is actually important whether she wants a handler or not. I cannot easily be discredited. I have resources you cannot imagine. I've no idea where on the food chain you are, but just so you understand I have begun pursuing legal resources in information regarding Emma. Push, Rumpelstiltskin, and see exactly what I will do to protect her."

"Most of the time, the right thing is a luxury," Rumpelstiltskin said, "like an environmental tax everyone wants yet does everything to avoid. I do what is needed and necessary."

"That's some pathetic attempt at a moral argument as I've ever heard," Regina laughed, "Yet, legally, you have nothing."

Regina walked off, her mind focused on Emma, who has been torturing herself since Rumpelstiltskin visited them on the island. She had only been sleeping because Regina was mildly sedating her.

Their life, exploded with this disaster and the days filtered by with Emma's anguish and her own worry. Returning to the table, and sitting down, Emma splayed her fingers over the table, reaching for comfort in Regina, who immediately reciprocated.

"Regina..."

"Yes?"

"You get used to it. Used to them."

"Why should you get used to it? Why should you have to?" Regina pitched her voice evenly, pulling her anger back.

"If Maleficent, Mulan and Cruella turned up and joined the table, would you be offended or would you simply include them in the table, like they naturally belonged?"

"Naturally belonged," Regina frowned, " What's your point?"

"That's how it is for us. We don't notice. Its like its natural."

"That's twisted, Emma," Regina said, "Did you just compare love among friends to being stalked by the government. They don't treat me like Rumpelstiltskin treats you."

"I know, but its the same Pavlovian response. Ruby, Belle, and Killian wouldn't notice if one of them sat at the table with us. They've always just been there. Well, except for the ones who failed to follow Killian that night. I imagine they've, at the very lest, been fired."

"Its just seems too passive of an adjustment to reality over an aggressive one. As if prefer to live deconstructed, without expectation."

"Why put it together when it inevitably leads to...not disappointment exactly, but not what was hoped for. If nothing can be constructed, you can cope with the lost, with loosing."

Maybe. Not everyone has hidden nefarious agendas," Regina recognised the precociousness of the woman fulfilling Emma's life without malicious agenda, a sense of exquisite balance rendering a sense of completeness, "How do Charm and Snow deal with it?"

"It's not meant to sound bleak," Emma commented before she chuckled, "I'm constantly surprised Charm hasn't killed one."

* * *

Three agonising days later, Regina and Emma lay naked on the bed, a slightly sweaty glint shearing over their bodies. Emma, propped up on her elbow, gently running her fingers in an ever increasing circular pattern over Regina's stomach.

"I'm sorry for being difficult."

Regina took Emma's hand and kissed her fingers, shifting her body closer to Emma, encouraging desire, "You're not difficult. I love you. I love you."

Emma smiled, kissing Regina's wrist, her hand bee lining across Regina's skin. There is a slight tap at the door and both scrambling out of bed, grabbing robes, going from relaxed to tense in an instant. Regina opened the door for Ruby to walked in.

Looking pale as she quietly said, "Rumpelstiltskin. He is in the..."she waved her hand at the ante-room, "...he wants to speak with you."

"Okay," Emma swallowed thickly, "I'll be out in a second."

She went over to the clothes hastily thrown on the floor as Regina closed the door behind Ruby, pulling on jeans and a shirt. Regina followed, dressing as hastily as Emma. They walked through the silence of the clustered group and out together.

Rumpelstiltskin, waiting, looked to Emma as she walked up to him, "I am sorry Sky. His body was found, pulled out of the river this morning. He was just identified."

"What happened?" Emma asked as tears involuntarily started streaming down her face.

Rumpelstiltskin pulled out his notebook and opened it to a page two-thirds of the way through and said, "The taxi was hailed on the streets by Robin and both entered at zero four three zero from the Esther Ball Homeless Youth Charity after party. He drove them to a riverside industrial estate, where various indications suggest torture. They were weighed down and thrown into the river at approximately zero six three zero."

"Do you know the perpetrator?" Regina asked, hand bracing Emma's back as her tears turned to sobs.

"Nash Ransley, male, sixty-three. He drove the taxi, resisted arrest and shot at the arrest site. Deceased."

Emma tensed, "Wait. You knew the taxi driver was missing? Or you didn't bother checking on him?"

Rumpelstiltskin paused "We were looking for him, yes. He delivered the taxi to the next driver and failed to show for his next shift. As I said no criminal past. He was interviewed at the time."

Emma screaming, irredeemable hysteria breaching her voice, "How could you keep this, of all things?"

"Yes. However we could not ascertain if he knew who Killian is..."

"Liar, you knew exactly who he is, knew from the name," fury emanated off of Emma and scorched all of the oxygen out of the room, "he would've been well aware of Tempenka. FSA would've made damn sure he knew where you suspected his daughter went. They blew up a military faction..."

"Look..."

Emma managed to slap him across the face before Regina pulled her back. She struggled to compose herself, and said through gritted teeth, "Please. Leave."

"I am so sorry," Rumpelstiltskin stood and left.

* * *

Emma is unstrung, sobbing, and pushing Regina away as her heart crumbled to ashes and dust. Snot dripping form her nose, her eyes swollen, her breath ragged with her shuddering body. Emma's throat hitched as she failed to speak and fell back into Regina, who lead her back to the bedroom to lay her down.

Emma's voice scratched and broken, "He's my last connection, my last evidence I existed. I've lost myself. I destroy people."

Regina fell apart at the sight of Emma breaking. Yet she waited, watched as Emma shattered, "Ransley. That's my mother's name on my birth certificate. Meredith, no middle name, Ransley, aged sixteen. Father Bailey, no middle name, Weaver, aged seventeen."

Regina curled up around Emma and for hours laid like that in the silence. Eventually, Emma shuffled and cuddled further into Regina, before whispering, "Every single one. Killian is dead. Ingrid is broken. Belle rarely leaves her basement."

Regina felt the terror inside of her. Finally, the tears Emma shed slowed. Regina moved to a sitting position, reaching for tissues and handing them to Emma, waited in silence. Emma looked up and held Regina's gaze, connected for the first time since she became upset. There is silence.

"You're extraordinarily," Regina said, "every day you're extraordinary. You may be torn and frayed at every edge, but you're a masterpiece to me."

Emma went to withdraw, almost recoiled as Regina shifted and moved next to her, wrapped her arms around her, pulled their bodies tight defiance of Emma's instinct to run.

Regina's voice, even and strong and soft, said, "I know you don't want to, don't like to hear it, but you're so phenomenally remarkable. You don't destroy. You're a gift. You allowed Killian a choice. You love him. You gave Ingrid an idea outside of herself. You gave Belle hope when she had none. You've given me so very much, and I'm illiterate to the world without you. You're worth waiting for, worth the pain. You, I ran towards."

Emma slumped against Regina, curling down until her head rested in her lap. Her body shuddered softly with silently shed tears. Regina ran her fingertips up and down Emma's back, relaxing her slowly.

Her voice tiny, a whisper above audible, softly into the darkness "Why does it feel like he died because of me? I don't remember us ever having being loved. Exalted, but not loved. There was always a price-tag. An expectation. We were meant to lead the community. I was meant to protect him. Ingrid wanted a daughter. Rumpelstiltskin wanted information. There was always something. Always. Even from myself. Especially for Killian. Why not you?"

"Why don't I have a price-tag?" Regina said. Emma nodded, murmuring her assent. "I do. It is simply you. You're absolutely my collateral damage, destroying my desolation. I love you. That's everything there is. There are no expectations, not even for you to love me back. You're a privilege. I'm not going to save you. I don't need to, you can fall apart, but I'll be here and I'll love every single piece. That's what I'll do, love every single second, because you're a treasure. My treasure."

Regina held no other answers, only comfort, only love. They stayed that way, hibernating together within love and sorrow.

* * *

Regina took Emma to bed after encouraging her to eat and stayed until she fell to irredeemable exhausted sleep, before returning to sit with Snow, the table scattered with remnants of dinner. Ruby and Belle escaped up to the greenhouse as soon as Emma went to bed. Snow knew they would go to her side soon enough, once they drew their brokenness enough together to be of use to her. Charm silent at the edge of the table, watching.

"What did Rumpelstiltskin say?" asked Snow, hearing the sounds of the kitchen, moving bodies of the trilogy tidying.

"Nash Ransley killed them, tortured them."

"Ransley?"

"Yes. There is information they're not telling us."

"Of course their is," Snow's voice reflective of the voice she uses with Emma, gentle love, a hug wrapped within her cadence, "however Beast would have found it if there was why."

"Ransley is her birth mothers birth name," Snow paused, reflecting on those first years with Emma and Killian, "she was pretty sure she knew who her mother was. You understand the name thing, right?"

"Yes. How it connects you to you're true self and to others true selves. Names matter."

"Yes, they're infinitely fundamental to who you are, and your place in the world. They're a gift to yourself," Snow paused, "When she was supplied with her birth certificate, Meredith Ransley and Bailey Weaver, were the names printed, yet not the names of who they were inside Tempenka. Killian's had who they were inside, so he always knew who his biological parents were."

Snow stopped to sip her coffee as Charm shuffled in her chair to move closer to Snow, calming them both, "Emma attempted to guess her parents based on this name philosophy. Meredith Ransley means Guardian of the Sea Raven Meadow. Inside Tempenka, a woman went by the name Sea Raven. Bailey comes from Bailiff, weaver as in the profession. Their was a man called Thatcher. She was definitive about Sea Raven, far less certain about Thatcher. It took her a long while to understand how parenting works in this world, initially it made her angry and bewildered."

"She said she rebelled against Ingrid as she couldn't understand how one parent was enough," Regina stated.

"True. Killian, though, loved it, loved the family he was placed within. He is lost without structure. Emma, though, rebels, always making things extra hard on herself."

"She's lost and lost and lost," Regina fell.

"She's gained and fought and collects love. Killian followed her for no other reason than love. She broke his life long training. Ruby and Belle love her, sisters that may have started in pain and loss, but finished in love. Charm and myself," Snow watched Regina intensely, "You."

Regina quietened, her heartbeat quickened irregularly as she unravelled, let all the pent up horror go, the wasted, languishing time, and of history full of shadows chasing the dawn, and quietly allowed it all to fall, salty pathways divoting down her cheeks. Snow stood and grasped Regina, drawing her body in, holding comfort within her grasp, and over her shoulder saw two figures emerge only to disappear within the master suit.

* * *

Emma woke, groggily, to find two soft bodies surrounding her. They were all curled together like when Colette had died, all limbs and comfort.

"Hay," Emma pushed them over her to get to the water on the bedside table.

"Hay," Ruby mumbled, rolling over.

"Off," Belle pushed as Emma climbed over her.

"Anything?" Emma asked, "The taxi cam?"

"Not more than we already had. They've closed the case," Beast broke through, as Emma climbed off the bed and walked into the en-suite. Ruby tumbled off of the bed to follow her.

"There is nothing, really, to action," Belle said.

"Yes, I know."

"Its frustrating," Ruby agreed, "but he is dead. Whats done is already done."

"Of course. How's everyone?" Emma flushed and walked to the basin.

"Cora, Ingrid, Nan and Henry went back to their apartments. Everyone else won't leave," Belle said as she walked in, stretching out the sleep while Ruby walked to the toilet.

"At least we know," Emma sneezed.

"I know. What do you need?" Belle leaned over the basin to wash her face.

Emma shrugged, "Nothing can replace the dead."

"Foozeball..." Beast butted in.

"Beast..." Emma frowned.

"You want a distraction. Iviesphere is sympathetic, but do you really want to hear all of those messages?"

"Not right now. Where is Regina?"

"Living room with the Snow and Charm."

"Thanks Beast." Emma looked at Belle and Ruby, waiting for her.

"She loves you, you know," Ruby smiled.

"I know. I love her, too."

"Do you want me to tell her to come in?" Beast asked.

"No, shower first," Emma tugging at her clothes to get them off before attending the panel button. Ruby and Belle followed her, the three standing under the water.

"This shower is insane. You sure you don't want Regina?"

"I absolutely do. I cannot unlearn her and the tangle of beauty she binds me too every single day, how explicitly she learns the details, enveloping our love, weaving it it into the quiet us. I cannot unlearn the caress of her lips against my skin, the comfort of her presence, just her ability to allow me to exist within my own space. All the fighting I had to do, exhausting myself just for my own space, and she just lets me in..."

"Emma..."

"No. Let me finish. We had all of what I just said first. We did. I need you both, as well, because I cannot unlearn us, either."


	12. Tempenka

XII TEMPENKA

They went out to Westwood Manor after the funeral. Emma releasing his ashes to the Lake, watching him float away before walking the wooded curve of the lake, arms casually linked in Regina's.

Emma's voice began to drift in the silence between them, hesitantly, in her soft autumn turning fall timbered voice, "It always begins with the dead. Every truthful story does. Twists and weaves into the knots binding us to ourselves and each other."

"Do you think he would've liked being let go here?"

"No. He would've wanted to go to Tempenka for burial rites. They wouldn't have. But I'm here and so shall he be," Emma breathed in the denseness of the forest before she continued.

"The community I was born into was lead by Blue, the divine name of the divine leader, descendant of the divine spiritual line. Our Temple opened to the sky. Tempenka is used in self reference to not insult the name of the divinity, mixing the words Temple and Blue. I was born into Tempenka by parents who joined when they were both sixteen. They relinquished to Blue directly acknowledgement of any other life. I found this out when the FSA took us into custody," Emma scrunched her nose.

"It had about a hundred and eighty five members by the time I left. About two thirds were generational members, the rest newer members who added their life to the binding. Tempenka itself is about a hundred and fifty to two hundred years old. They didn't recruit and are super suspicious and paranoid about outsiders. New members had to know of Tempenka and actively attempt to join. Tempenka did not participate in a wider social community or integrated at all with the closest village," Emma waited for the breeze to settle.

"The one ascending to the role of Blue is by divine prophecy and was considered divine by decent of bloodline, although, it is the divine coursing through your veins that purified you, not by descent of any human. Blue held together all five elements, the four existing on this plane — Earth, Water, Air and Fire — as well as the most important — Spirit. Spirit is fundamental to who we are, dictates everything and all four physical elements submit to Spirit. Blue wielded Spirit as if a weapon," stepping through an uneven patch of ground, Emma paused to swallow before continuing.

"Tempenka developed its own language, Tranqi, a hybrid mixture of about three languages descending from the founders and meshed over time, melded and folded like paper with new members integrating. We were educated in Tranqi. Killian and I," her voice corkscrewing as she said his name, "were born the same day, two women expelled us from their bodies in unison, fulfilling a sacred prophecy as births on the same day were considered fortuitous, the soil double-blessed with supplicant gifts. Births are regulated. Your sexual partners are definitively controlled. The community believes this is divine will, for it is written in our foundation documentation and our birth patterns recorded and tracked from inception."

"Now, of course, I understand, this is done to prevent in-breeding. Blue decreed we were the single soul, dual bodied divine destiny to be bound at divine times. Bounding meant exclusive breeding. The destiny of this divine purpose is ordained by Blue, prophet leader," the sounds of the forest fill the gaps hovering inbetween Emma's voice.

"We're named by Blue prophecy, and were destined to be the future leaders of the community. We would've become Blue. I told you my name, Emma de la Sky, means Moon of the Celestial Sphere and Killian-Tashka Semira means Tree with Deep Earthen Roots. Our names are a balance of each other, an ecliptic harmony. If we ascended our prophecy, the names of our breeding would've been Stellar Sphere Tellurian and Azure Elysian Vale. Both variants with the same meaning — sky and earth produce the celestial stars," Emma paused, her eyes unfocused, drifting, trusting Regina would not let her fall.

She quietly added, "we would've shed our names once on ascension to Blue. Part of the foundation prophecy is twins. The only other twin Blue were the first that ascended. They reformed Tempenka while in infancy. We were important, the fulfilment of so very much. Killian and I, born within a minute of each other. We were so destined, full of prophetic vision."

"Your children were named?" asked Regina, gently reassuring Emma she is listening.

"The divine spoke through Blue. All children belonged to Tempenka, or rather everyone in the community belongs to each other and the social ideology of group dynamics. Everyone equally responsible for everyone and for yourself. Community is everything, paramount in the lives we led, in the dimensions and within the sacred music we played, our bodies as we danced. Tempenka considered themselves curators of consciousness, even though they're radical, anti-state, anarchist. Cities and the outside world were like unicorns. We were safe in our own enchanted universe. Cars and trucks were unfathomable. I didn't understand anything existed outside of our reality until I left," stopping, Regina reached to fold Emma's hands within her own.

"Coming here, it was devastating to see how insulated we were, and it made me angry we were, but as angry that in quite a few issues, they were right. Death is a natural consequence of life, not taken by any other than the divine. Murder is anathema. Still, I'm never used to the violence out here, this hideous brutality. We can't escape our training. This is why most members were there. We may look like we fit, but we've never escaped our cultural conditioning, so trained into us is the priority of service to community," Emma's face so fallen Regina heart thudded to the pit of her stomach.

The silence broke as Emma's voice became a lullaby, "Everyone had a specific job. The teachers and child attendants, people who worked with animals, those who grew the crops, cooked. Children under a hundred and twenty moon are considered infants, after that you are trained in the ways all the jobs for the next seventy-two moons. Except for Killian and myself. We were only trained to be Blue. We were divine. We were rotated through all the jobs, but for understanding than functionality."

Emma swallowed, "The council of six hold their position for four seasons and were rotated via age. The Council made day to day decisions regarding the community. You had to serve. If you wanted to change jobs, you could apply to Blue. Every three months there is a convocation of every adult member of the community, where community changes were allowed. Its both uniformity and unique."

Emma saw the lake as they walked back down towards it, "Parentage is forbidden knowledge for anyone not Blue. We're taught from birth how to lead, how the divine spoke. We would've eventually learnt the breeding lines Blue managed. The birth givers will know which child is biologically theirs, the adults of the community know, but they will not say, will not speak of any child with possession. When I left I eventually received a copy of my birth certificate. Every external soul who joined the community is given a cleansed, divine name, free of the filth of the world they discarded. They rarely changed it legally, though. I've a birth certificate because Tempenka was…is…very conscious of being legal as possible. I was told I was new blood, so I made some deductions. I guess its confirmed now. Meredith Ransley. But death seems to be the way of things, I guess."

She pulled her arms out of Regina's and sat down, looking out over the water when really, she was lost in memory of farm, the curve of the earth and running barefoot everywhere. Her hands started to drift along with what her memory is showing her.

She felt Regina sit down beside her, yet did not truly see her, as she spoke with inflected cadence, "We had our foundation documents, building organic rules upon these, an evolution of our community in language. Such focus on natural, agrarian policies naturally took us further away from this, mainstream culture, evolved further away from each other. Our insulation, severely sheltered us beyond normal. The distance between our settlement and anything from the outside is these thick forests. Come to life as you are and leave as you should be."

"The community buildings are clustered inside a wooded area, off to the right, at the middle of the property. There is cleared farming fields with corn, wheat, an orchard and paddocks with cows, goats, chickens, alpaca's and a thicket of trees running outside of this. A creek ran through our property, along a north-west to south-east delineation. It split some fields naturally and provided us with water. Where it ran across our property, the trees and plant life were left four meters along both the outer edges to protect the purity of the water. We had old aqua ducts to take this water around the farm. This is one of those things we need to know how to maintain," Emma struggled.

"We didn't use electricity, obviously, and much of our lives were dictated by the sun, but I remember making candles, their soft glow belaying the fact we made them out of the dead animals, tallow raised and boiled, cooled in moulds and glass jars made by the glass maker. Their was a pottery master, making all that we ate off. All of these jobs apprenticed at various stages, traditionally completely self-sufficient. The older you became, the more responsibility you were given in the community," her voice crackled along with the memories, cluttering all of her words together, stacking them on top of each other. Regina listened to Emma intently describing all of the labyrinthine small things involved in her life.

"Killian and I were inseparable, secluded and separated by our own difference, our joint divinity, as much as by our choice. When we turned one hundred and sixty eight moons, Blue announced our 'Flowering' another divine prophecy, an inspired co-joining of ancient and new blood lines. Killian's genetic heritage is one of the founding families, bloodline legacy. We learnt more about the prophecy of our blood-lines than most in the community as we were in training to become Blue, and permission is needed to participate in ritualised bonding. We needed to understand the connections. Usually bonding for child flowering is for the 'middling' or people who are past two hundred and fourty moon age. We were young and concern was raised regarding the flowering of us too early. There was a consideration this may inappropriate and would highlight our community to the outside unnecessarily. However, Blue called a convocation," Emma, tapped into an emotional reservoir she is deeply remembering, fell into using Tempenka association.

"The council is one adult member for every one hundred and twenty moons over the age of two hundred and forty moons. Convocation is every adult member of the community. A week after the convocation, a ceremony was called, then a celebration. The convocation passed our bonding placement. We were placed in the ceremonial room, inside the sacred circle, next to the creek, hemmed in by trees. The cloth canvas green, to match the surrounding forest, and the floor earth covered in moss, for us to blend natures focus towards each other. Council guardians were assigned to watch us consummate the divination."

Emma, tears twinkling in the light drew a rough mud map in the dirt before leaning back to Regina. She gleaned a sharp spiked breath before continuing, her voice wavering.

"This tent is outside the edge of the village on the opposite side of the creek. The village is at the center right of the property, within a forested enclave, after this there is the farmland the community tilled, and a thick, wide forested border for keeping the other world out and divine in. This creek running through our property was never stripped of its protection and was left with craggy, fluffy trees edging the snaking watery pathway out beyond the boundary. Killian and I did what we needed, what was expected for the bounding under watchful eyes before they left us, momentarily, to inform Blue and for us to meditate together and bond the sky and the earth together," Emma shuddered with the memory and shuffled closer into Regina, absorbing her love by osmosis.

"They breed you?"

"Bonded us, yes they're very committed to fulfilling our prophecy, for us to complete the training to ascend, for our union to produce children."

"But..."

"Regina, I understand what your asking, I really do, but no. Its not as bad as what your think. We were raised under vastly different circumstances. This, what they asked, was part of our training and culture..."

"Okay..."

"Stop it. We were young, even for us, yet still we can't be judged according to your expectations," Emma quietened, her voice hollow with pain, swallowing the shadow within telling her she could never matter, "We celebrated each month and the change of seasons: Harbinger of death, rebirth, life. Times of loss, darkness, change and light. Our clothes changed, our pillows and blankets filled with the feathers of chickens, ducks and geese. Each moon was a rebirth for all of us, to shake off the old and welcome new, each month new lessons of renewal, change and responsibility."

"There was silence when they retreated, temporarily to return to the continued celebrations with the rest of the community. It would've been like this the rest of the night, us bonding with an observing guardian, our silent meditation and the continued celebration of the community. Our bonding and the accompanying celebration was divinated into a six cycle contact. Killian and I would have to meditate in between these six cycles to channel the divine. We were still in training, still learning all the intricacies of the breeding program, we felt out of control, unable to understand why this needed to happen so soon," Emma shrugged, turned away, turned back.

"Our bond of oneness had been violated, used against us, single soul in twin bodies, brother and sister reflections an illusion thrown back at us, innocent and in spite of our training we were thrown into a responsibility we hadn't been taught yet. So I ran. We were only one hundred and sixty moons, still seventy-two moons away from our entry into the convocation in the community, our consideration as full community members," Emma quietened for a moment, her recollection overwhelming.

Regina wrapped her arms around her, drawing Emma in-between her legs, holding her, offering her the only thing she could give: comfort. Emma relaxed completely into Regina, burying her face within. Her voice shattered as she started speaking again.

"We used the creek as cover. I can still feel the trees rustling quietly. We ran forever, the darkness thick surrounded us. I tripped over something and ripped my robe. It stung, so much. It wasn't until Killian helped me up I realised he followed. The darkness held until we hit the fence line and tumbled onto the road where it hit the hard line edge of the creek. We kept going, walking shoeless and wrapped only in ceremonial embroidered robes over our nakedness. A trucker eventually picked us up, however kicked us out rather quickly due to our inability to speak or understand the language he was speaking. He looked at us as if we were alien and I guess we were looking at him the same. We were stranded, exhausted, terrified and alone," Emma sniffed.

Emma paused, swallowing, "We jumped into trailer's, vans, trains, did whatever we needed to kept moving in case they followed us, for days and days until we eventually wound away across the scars of the earth to end up here. We became scavengers, living on the hard underbelly of this brutal place, on the streets for eight months, learning how to exist in this world. We did many things I'm not proud of. We were not proud of."

"Kahtya was able to hide us, mostly, and Violet Pier's industrial estates, empty in the night. When they became too violent, we stayed in Ianthe, or worked nights. Ways and means. Snow and Granny's always good. As long as you were clean, looked like you had purpose and stuff, looked like you could belong, the police never noticed and you could escape their raids in Kahtya. We picked up this language, badly, hiding in all of these places, sublimating our accents to be just strange, rather than noticeable. We were taught to pay attention to cycles, to animal behaviour, and attempted to apply this knowledge to at least attempt to blend," Emma's voice is thick and muffled.

"We'd never done the basic things of this world like caught a bus, rode in a car, been to school, watched television, listened to radio, used a computer. We'd never seen any of these things. We'd never eaten anything deep fried, or drank anything that wasn't from the creek. Yet we learnt, quickly, how to exist, how to shelter, learnt our voices for the first time. Eight months and we made a mistake. Food usually could be gained for free from a charity, or one of those mobile food vans. Clothes, however, were not so easy. We stole some and we were caught," anger diffused through Emma's voice.

"Family Services collected us from a police station. I'd so much rage and courage, emotionally disconnected and violently oppressed, yet ready to fight. I was scrappy. In either world we're raised to be servants and slaves. Tempenka is not revolutionary in its intention to ignore industrial life for superficial and cosmetic reasons. Out here, it is the same, industrial life ignoring agrarian life," Emma's voice deepened, bitterness changing her cadence, the fear weeping back in.

"We still communicated mostly in Tranqi, separated by our differences. We refused to speak and were placed separately into foster care when the store did not press charges. It was devastating for us, never having been apart. We never considered separating. We ran from our first three placements and from the group home," Emma waited a moment for squawking birds to quieten.

"I met Ruby in that group home. We were in the same dorm, she in the bunk above my own. They'd gendered dorms, so Killian and I were more often apart and had restricted contact with each other. Meal times and the music room became our usual monitored interaction, we were watched so intensely. I think they'd have separated us permanently if they could have, but we would not function without each other. Ruby didn't speak much, mostly played this battered violin she had and belted anyone who touched it. She slept with it, breathed it."

Emma, lost within the burden of her history compressing her heart, she remembered Ruby's face, her fingers caressing the violin that sung to her soul, "I think this is why Killian gave up music. Ruby and I could make music together, he felt excluded. He was always super jealous of anyone closer to me then him. Not that Ruby is, but he just thought she was."

"The foster system can be toxic, and we survive when we hang on to the few things of beauty we have. Ruby...we connected, music a language between us before anything else. She was placed into care before we escaped and returned before we were caught again, bruised from a beating with her arm slung in a cast. Our names written on water, lost when the breeze rippled across the surface. Ruby stayed with the state after her incident, battled and gained her emancipation at sixteen. I was placed with Ingrid, but we stayed in contact, burdened as we were by forces we could not control. Ruby, Belle and I became close at around this time, most of those reasons you already know, or they've told you. Killian kept only me, really. In between all of this, we were surrounded with each other."

Emma paused, waiting for the irredeemable dark memories upon her face to clear again before she continued, settling the wavering in her voice.

"We celebrated our one hundred and eighty moon birth month in a social service office, our case worker at a loss with what to do with silent children. This is where FSA and the Stokers became involved, most of which I told you at Amberlai. They threatened and separated us for seven days, yet this made us determined to hold our silence. We are both trained in the ways of power and understood our ability to leverage information we had against what they wanted. We'd been surviving for far too long to not smell their desperation. We were trained for service," Emma waited for a second.

"We ate at Snow's and volunteered in feeding others. We served because we were trained to. Snow is such a phenomenon, really. She took me into her heart when I had no right to be there. Killian and I tried to blend in, but we couldn't help but stand out. All for the community. Trained too well, I guess. Even when we were able to communicate, we still didn't blend. Our souls were so inexorably intertwined in the shreds of our lives. Their threats against our future meant nothing in comparison to our past. The only thing we really did not get was a joint placement, yet we understood this was not a permanent separation," Emma sighed, swallowed as Regina's body murmured against her.

"How did you survive?"

"Charm and Snow. They insisted we not supporting characters in anyone's catastrophes, instead we're all leads in our own lives. Being out here is all about conforming to this ludicrous brand of society, abnormally enforced efficiently by all participants. We needed to conform to laws not our own, a reality not of our own making. Any world is filtered by perception and our reality changed so rapidly. Those two taught us how to control our will."

"They're absolutely vital too you," Regina said, "terrifying though."

"They are absolutely terrifying, like this uptown mafia and I couldn't live without any of them. After Nan, change was rapid. Our case manager changed. I was placed, as you know, with Ingrid, Killian with a married couple with a pair of daughters. In the end, I think it was a perfect choice, as we got to see something we wouldn't have if we remained together; the world around us. It allowed us to forgive ourselves for the past. Probably the future. Due to my educational issues, Ingrid had me privately tutored and in the three years I spent with her, I managed to complete college level classes, as well as having a specialist linguistics minor," Emma smiled.

"I was desperate to learn as much as I could, but also desired for mediocrity, for FSA to have no basis for destroying us further. I became very insulated, scared if I messed up, our consequences could be more than Killian could pay. I know how fortunate we were. Extremely fortunate. I've been working for Pacer since shortly after I moved in with Ingrid, and when we were lucky enough to be considered adults, Killian and I moved into our own apartment, actively controlling our own destiny instead of being part of cookie cutter set of rules," Emma hooked her nose when she curled her lips.

"Actually, our education with Tempenka was very good. It was predominant in natural sciences, maths, music, performance, and theatre arts, although all in Tranqi. What we lacked in social, political and cultural development was made up for," she swallowed a couple of times, "I wanted to be unseen. For all of that time is Tempenka, I was always noticed. Trained and feted, but always focal points. I liked being able to be unknown, until I lost that, too."

"Not unknown by everyone?" Regina ran her fingers lightly over her arm.

"No, I guess not that," a soft exhale, "the irony is I ran from one responsibility to all types of others."

"Some burdens can be shared?" Regina's reassurance drowning Emma.

"Yes," Emma stopped and turned in Regina's arms.

Regina leaned leaned in and kissed Emma deftly, attempting to convey that she is the tangible reminder of every single sacrifice made completely worthwhile. It is inescapable she belongs in her heart, in her life, in her bed, fitting perfectly, already nestled deep into her life. Emma drew back and smiled, asking, "You're not scared?"

Regina shook her head, "Of course not. You're full of this tragedy and all it has done is make you magical. You're staggeringly impressive."

Regina, always intensely meticulous and inevitably cautious, leaned into the woman who rebuilt her heart to taste her lips again. She understood why Emma sheltered the love that grew between them, how she was a gift that could mute both their pasts.

Regina whispered against their lips, "You're my light, how I negotiate the dark. You're not simply Moon of the Celestial Sphere, not simply a name. Its who you are to me."

"I loved you when I couldn't hide myself," whispered Emma.

"I love you," as Regina spoke, Emma let go, released her history as Regina affirmed, "I love you."

They kissed again, softly, lingering as it deepened, warmed, filled them. Emma leaned back, her breathing jittery. Regina stood, pulling Emma up and lead them along the pathway, resting within the silence. As they came to the mansion, she tugged Emma in, seizing her lips with her own, "Thank You. Really. Thank You."

* * *

Emma woke to the silence of their room, chilled with Regina breathing deeply beside her, and as Emma rolled in towards her, snuggling in, seeing her resting, beautiful face. Regina evoked inexplicable cravings in Emma as she moved her head close enough to feel her heartbeat in the darkness. Emma ran her fingers from the hip upwards over Regina's ribs, drew her body in tighter.

Regina mumbled pulling Emma in against herself. Emma snuggled into her neck before lifting her head up to see a sleepy Regina blinking at her. Emma leaned kissing, so tenderly it reminded her of everything within the abyss. Emma subtly shifted to curled their love together. Kissing within this entanglement always she could do for hours. She loved and was loved.


	13. Epilogue

EPILOGUE

"Are you ready?" Regina called as she walked from the ensuite, pushing the back of the earring into place.

Emma, standing in the stillness of the living room, called, "Yes," before picking up her clutch, and walking towards the anteroom. Standing, waiting, are the faces of her life, Ruby, Charm, Snow, Maleficent, Mulan and Cruella.

"You look beautiful," Regina said, breathless at the sight of Emma. It is ridiculous she felt this way all the time, "Ready?"

Emma nodded and pressed for the elevator. The doorman opened the door, escorting the ladies to the waiting car, and with a brief slight hum, they knifed into traffic. Emma picked up Regina's hand to lace their fingers together, squeezing her hand tightly. Feeling her as a reality was infinitely insane as Regina could tear her apart and put her back together with just her voice.

"The speech ready?" Regina asked.

Emma nodded and smirked, "Can't wait."

Silence rested with them for the remainder of the journey. They pulled up to the conference space forty minutes later and walked through the crowd. Finding their names at tables delicately prepared, chatter ensued, small voices becoming a cacophony of noise. Food was served and removed, wine gently flowed through the room, relaxing the participants.

Hunter Parker, CEO of Rainbeaux Homeless Youth Charity and the host of the Esther Ball, stood to the podium while flashing lights dimmed and rose to seek the silence of the crowd. Once the audience calmed, Hunter began.

"Welcome to the annual Esther Ball, in support of Rainbeaux Homeless Youth Charity. We welcome tonight Emma Swan as our guest speaker. Her story is a fascinating one. Over seven years ago, at fourteen, Emma Swan and Killian Jones, escaped an alternative enclosed community with no access to outsiders. Killian, whose death, along with his partner, Robin Hood, shocked us all was active in HYC programs and while many of us remember him fondly, we had little knowledge of this past. Please welcome Emma Swan."


End file.
